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2/24/15,
"Nigeria's fashionistas upset by falling oil prices," BBC, Lucy Fleming
"Nigeria's government receives more than 75% of its revenues from oil
exports - and in the last six months prices on global markets have more
than halved."...(subhead, "Online disappointment")
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$1 billion Nigerian monthly oil theft "involves crooked politicians, security forces, oil industry
personnel and oil traders....Proceeds are laundered through banks and businesses in African states,
as well as the U.S., Britain, Switzerland, India, Singapore and the
Persian Gulf."...
10/18/2013, "Nigeria's booming oil theft racket costs $1B a month," upi.org, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
"Royal
Dutch Shell is selling off four of its onshore Nigerian oil blocks
because of the constant theft of large volumes oil from its pipelines,
officials said.
The move highlights the West African state's growing
battle with criminal syndicates that are stealing an average of 100,000
barrels of crude a day. That costs the continent's second largest
economy after South Africa up to $1 billion a month, a criminal
enterprise on an industrial scale that officials say rivals the
narcotics trade as the world's most lucrative crime.
Oil industry
officials and community workers say this massive theft of Nigeria's key
resource involves crooked politicians, security forces, oil industry
personnel and oil traders.
There are also militant groups
operating in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta, a labyrinth of
swamps and creeks that provide cover for the complex network of crime.
"There's
a sophisticated organization," says Philip Mshelbila, Shell's chief of
communications in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital. "Clearly it's not
just local. There has to be a wide network."
Mela Oforibika, a
lawyer and head of the delta community of Bolo in southern Nigeria
that's the center of the oil theft network, asserts that the military is
paid off by crime syndicates.
"The pay-off system to the armed
forces and police ... is well organized ... Most army have a lifestyle
that you can't explain," he said.
Stealing oil from pipelines or
other facilities is known as "bunkering." Officials say it's now so
pervasive, in the delta particularly, that there's little interest in
trying to stamp it out. And, with the fix supposedly running all the way
up to senior levels of government, there's little political will to do
anything despite the ruinous economic impact the oil theft has in a
deeply corrupt country long torn by tribal, regional and religious
rivalries.
Since Shell, which pioneered Nigeria's oil business,
started production from the Oloibiri field in 1958, other majors like
Exxon Mobil, Texaco and Gulf Oil have moved in.
Nigeria
historically was Africa's foremost producer, although Angola, further
south down the Atlantic coast, is now producing more crude oil.
In
recent years, Nigeria's onshore production has been slipping, in large
part because of "bunkering," but also because the older fields are
running down.
Initially, most of Nigeria's production was onshore,
75 percent in the 1970s, But now offshore wells are overtaking the
land-based fields and deepwater drilling is now predominant -- and
harder to steal from.
Because of the oil theft, Nigerian production is running 400,000 barrels per day below its capacity of 2.5 million bpd.
The damage inflicted by the oil thieves has forced some companies in the delta to shut down pipelines for long periods.
On
Oct. 10, Shell closed its Trans-Niger pipeline, capable of pumping
150,000 bpd to the giant refinery at Bonney, because it had been holed
so many times by thieves.
It's one of the most sabotaged pipelines in the world and that was the third shutdown in four months.
High
oil prices in recent months, usually around $100-$110 a barrel, have
blunted the impact of the oil thievery. Oil and gas account for around
70 percent of the country's revenues.
But Nigeria's not out of
the woods yet, and is unlikely to be despite some expansion in non-oil
sectors such as telecoms and construction.
A recent report by the
Royal Institute for International Affairs, a London think tank, said
Nigeria's oil is being stolen not just from the pipelines, but tank
farms, export terminals, refinery storage, ports and even wellheads.
"Officials and private actors disguise theft through manipulation of meters and shipping documents," the study observed.
"Proceeds
are laundered through world financial centers and used to buy assets in
and outside Nigeria, polluting markets and financial institutions
overseas, and creating reputational, political and legal hazards."
Much
of the stolen oil is loaded on barges and small ships in the delta's
creeks and carried to tankers offshore in the Gulf of Guinea, where it's
taken to neighboring countries in West Africa, or further afield to
Brazil, China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Balkans where it's
processed by international crime syndicates.
RIIA says the
proceeds are laundered through banks and businesses in African states,
as well as the U.S., Britain, Switzerland, India, Singapore and the
Persian Gulf."
=====================
7/5/12, "Mongolia’s task: avoid Nigerian resource curse," Reuters, Martin Hutchinson
"Current estimates are that more than $1 billion of oil per month is
stolen from the Niger Delta fields and corruption remains endemic even
under well-meaning President Goodluck Jonathan. Nigeria ranks 133rd on
the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index and 143rd on Transparency
International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. True, high oil prices
reversed 40 years of decline in living standards through 2000. And while
GDP growth is slowing, it’s still expected to run at 6 percent to 7
percent this year. But with inflation in double digits and government
expenditure budgeted to exceed revenue by 31 percent in 2012, Nigeria’s
situation is unstable."
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