Nigeria in danger over breached contracts, stolen funds

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October 8, 2019 | The Biafra Times

THE BREACHED AGREEMENTS

• P&ID (Propane Dehydration (12-24 months) 88.198MMscf/d;
• Octopol Energy Limited (LPG Extraction (12-15 months) 4.676MMscf/d, 3.039MMscf/d, 4.800MMscf/d, 2.100MMscf/d, 13.4MMscf/d;
• Petrolog Oil & Gas Limited (CNG (9-24 months) 8.76MMscf/d, 20.600MMscf/d;
• GFD Energy Nigeria Ltd (GFD) (2million MT Floating LNG) 5.7MMscf/d, 7.5MMscf/d, 2.2MMscf/d, 9.2MMscf/d;
• Global Gas & refining Limited (GGRL) (LPG Extraction) 11.300MMscf/d, 12.398MMscf/d, 8.35MMscf/d.
• Davubic Energy Development Comp. Ltd (LPG Extraction) 8.4MMscf/d, 21.516MMscf/d, 18.1MMscf/d;
• Consortium of Drake Oil Limited & Partners (DOL) 7.42MMscf/d, 6.856MMscf/d, 14.564MMscf/d;
• Tricity Oil Nigeria Ltd 1.266MMscf/d, 4.977MMscf/d, 2.026MMscf/d, 4.979MMscf/d, 3.777MMscf/d.
• Colechurch International Ltd (LPG Extraction) 3.778MMscf/d, 3.335MMscf/d, 2.539MMscf/d, 2.071MMscf/d, 13.10MMscf/d, 1.000MMscf/d;
• Eurafic Oil & Gas Ltd (LPG Extraction) 3.256MMscf/d, 5.075MMscf/d, 12.00MMscf/d;
• Ibeto Group (LPG Extraction) 23.00MMscf/d, 34.3MMscf/d,
• Borkir International Company Ltd. 26.558MMscf/d, 26.7MMscf/d.

NIGERIA faces likely litigation for more breaches of gas agreements, it was learnt on Tuesday.

Not less than 11 agreements signed with different firms have been breached and the companies are waiting for the outcome of the litigation of the Federal Government with Process and Industrial Developments (P&ID) to determine whether to press for claims.

Nigeria is before a London court trying to reverse the $9.6 billion arbitral judgment against the country over a dubious gas agreement signed with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources without passing through due process.

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Some of the 11 companies were alleged to have initiated arbitration process against the Federal Government.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has written to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to assist in probing how the 11 extra deals are tied to the ill-fated contracts with P&ID.

The EFCC has raised a team of detectives to probe the deals.

It was learnt that the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources on January 10, 2010 entered into separate agreements with P&ID and 12 other pre-qualified investors for gas production facilities at the nation’s oil fields.

A source, who spoke in confidence, said: “Nigeria is in a serious danger because 11 other firms have issues with the Federal Government on the gas projects.

“The Ministry of Petroleum Resources actually on January 10, 2010, entered into a deal with P&ID and 12 other pre-qualified investors for accelerated development of gas production facilities at the nation’s oil fields.

“These oil fields included those on offshore, land swamp in different flare points. Both the government and the investors have their obligations spelt out in the MoU. And the two parties have defaulted with the P&ID and 11 companies seeking compensation or payment of damages.

“Some of these firms have initiated arbitration process. A few others are awaiting the outcome of Nigeria’s case at the UK Court of Appeal to make a stronger case for payment of damages.

“The concern of those in NNPC and other government officials is about how much Nigeria will now pay for the botched Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA). This is why the government is ready to give P&ID a good fight in the UK and in the United States.”

Another source in the NNPC said: “This corporation does not want a repeat of P&ID arbitral award and it has referred the case of the 11 firms to the EFCC for investigation and advice on how the nation can go about it.

“We want to try as much as possible to prevent a deluge of arbitration cases which can ground the nation’s economy.

“Some of the companies have already initiated arbitration steps. It is only a firm that has decided not to either take Nigeria to a court or any arbitration panel.

“Certainly, the GSPA was untidy, fraudulent and a plot by some of the companies to rip off the nation.”

A team of special detectives was said to be handling the investigation of the deals with the 11 firms.

“Our detectives are already investigating the deals with the firms. We have shortlisted about 25 persons to interact with.

“We also discovered that the deals are inter-related with the ongoing case of P&ID. We will leave no stone unturned to end this type of challenge the nation is facing,” a source in the anti-graft agency added.

Also, the Federal Government has invoked Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to extradite a co-owner of P&ID, Brendan Cahill and  Adam Quinn, the son of the owner of the Irish firm, the late Michael Quinn.

A government source said: “We have already invoked MLAT between Nigeria and the UK and Ireland to bring the two key officials of P&ID to trial in Nigeria.

“We have filed charges against a former Director, Legal Services in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and they have been implicated Cahill.

“We are hopeful that the extradition move will succeed.”

NEWS SOURCE

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Gas flaring: Niger Deltans suffer wrecking disaster as Govt continues to pay lip service

April 5, 2019

By Chukwuemeka Chimerue, Chief Editor | The Biafra Times

Gas flaring in the Niger Delta region, the hub of Nigeria’s economy, has become a recurring nightmare to the inhabitants despite lukewarm policies implemented by successive governments that were tepidly executed.

The Nigerian authorities have had incessant failed policies outlawing indiscriminate flaring of gas in the oil-rich region. The consequences of this are the health, human rights and environmental challenges the residents are suffering; and the culprits of these woes – multinational oil companies – do not pay the fines levied against them by the government, our inside report unearths.

“Due to unsustainable exploration practices, coupled with the lack of gas utilization infrastructure, we flare more than 75 percent of the gas produced and re-inject only 12 percent to enhance oil recovery,” authorities have said.

Not minding a substantive and valid ruling of the Federal High Court, Benin city in November 2005 against the practice that violates human rights, oil companies in the area still flare gas with reckless abandon.

Justice C. V. Nwokorie ruled that the practice is illegal because, according to him, “the damaging and wasteful practice of flaring cannot lawfully continue.”

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Residents of Niger Delta witnessed, in 2010 alone, how over 3.5 billion cubic feet (100,000,000 m³) of related gas produced in the Niger Delta, 2.5 billion cubic feet (70,000,000 m³), or approximately 70 percent were flared in the atmosphere per annum. What happened in the Niger Delta in 2010 in terms of gas flaring, as according to those who know better, equaled UK’s total natural gas utilization which was put roughly at 25 percent and 40 percent of Africa’s gas ingestion in 2001.

This was affirmed by the authorities recently, “While statistics may not be accurate, the quantity of gas flared in Nigeria exceeds over 40 percent of the gas flared annually across Africa, which amounts to about $7 billion in waste, apart from economic waste being a consequence of gas flaring.”

It was discovered that what the Niger Deltans have come to live with, in the name of gas flaring, contains, “nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, like benzene, toluene, xylene, and hydrogen sulfide, as well as carcinogens, like benzopyrene and dioxin.” And 755 million SCF are flared each day, specialists say.

These are by-products of flaring. The irony is that the flared gas is situated within residential areas, with health specialists not smiling, when they inform that Niger Deltans are prone to sicknesses such as leukemia and other dangerous blood-connected diseases.

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Represented by Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Ibn Bala Na’Allah President, while proclaiming open a public hearing on Gas Flaring (Prohibition) Bill 2017, Dr Bukola Saraki said, “Apart from economic waste being a consequence of gas flaring, flared gas is also known to contain toxic substances, which causes respiratory diseases and air pollution, leading to depletion of the ozone layer, and ultimately having an adverse effect on weather and climate.”

The Senate situated its spirit high on June 1, 2017, carving a niche over the 39-year-old law, which recommends only N10 as fine for gas flaring. Saraki added, “The issue of gas-flaring in Nigeria is a matter of great national embarrassment. We have no reason to continue to flare this precious resource God has endowed us with. This bill, therefore, seeks to make provisions for the prohibition of the flaring and venting of natural gas in any oil and gas production operation in Nigeria and for other matters connected therewith.

“Gas-flaring is as old as the discovery of crude oil in Nigeria. While it remains a global environmental malaise with attendant environmental consequences, we must move with the rest of the world to seriously put an end to it. Gas flaring is not inevitability…”

In many occasions, the Federal Government had boasted that it would revoke licenses of oil firms over gas flaring. But this is a tall dream. In May 2018, at the 2018 Buyers’ Forum/Stakeholders’ Engagement organized by the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria, GACN, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu reiterated the FG’s make-believe boast to commence the revocation of the licences of oil companies that fail to stop flaring of gas in their operations in the country.

On November 1, 2016, the Obinna Chidoka-led House Committee on Environment and Habitat in the House of Representatives had warned oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region against continuous flaring of gas, saying it had subjected the lives of residents in the area to serious health hazards.

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According to Chidoka, “It is also established that 950 total recorded incidences of oil spill occurred in 2015 with a volume of 47,775.49 barrels impacting 595,800 square meters.

“Out of this, only 27.78% were cleaned. In 2016, so far 499 spills have been recorded, the record stated that 28,543.69 barrels were spilled covering 595,800 square meters areas of impact.

“Further available statistics in 2015 shows that Addax Oil company recorded two incidents of spills, AP Moller 2, Chevron 14, Conoil Producing Ltd 2, Mobil Producing Nigeria 63, Agip 71, NPDC 10, SEPLAT 8, Shell Petroleum Development Company 28, among others.

“Subsequently in 2016, a total incidence of spill indicates that Agip has 43 recorded spills so far, Mobil Producing Nigeria 26, Shell Petroleum Development Company 18, Chevron 8 and Nigeria Petroleum Development Company 9.”

Specialists, however, finger Benzene as the major causative factors of terminal health problems, like cancer, because it is one of the hazardous chemicals that circulate with flaring. Meanwhile, the same House of Representatives that once sued for end of gas flaring double-spoke on August 6, 2018, through member representing Sagbama-Ekeremor Federal Constituency, Mr. Fred Agbedi, saying that gas flaring in the Niger Delta region cannot be completely extinguished, as being talked about.

As the House Committee Chairman on Gas, Agbedi said that the reason for his views was that oil companies needed to smolder some amount of gas in the course of crude oil adventure and production.

According to him, “The Federal Government is taking a few steps to see how gas flaring can be reduced or eliminated. And that is why it is also coming out with policies of off-takers of the gas that is being flared.

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“Once the contracting of gas flare to offtakers is concluded, there will be companies which will take the flared gas which will largely reduce gas flaring. But the fact remains, you need some quantity of gas to be burned for the production to also take place.

“Even when the offtakers are taking what they are supposed to take as quantity of gas that is being flared, there will be some kind of industrial flare that is going to take place for the process of exploration of crude oil to take place.

“You cannot completely lock it down. What the Federal Government and the world over are aiming at, is to reduce gas flaring to such an extent that it no longer causes challenge to the environment and the atmosphere. That is what the government is working towards and it will take some time to get that sorted.”

When this was not working, Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State on November 26, 2018, when Course 41 of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, led by Major-Gen. Felix Edafioghor in Asaba came to his office on a courtesy visit, called on the FG to put stringent measures in place to end gas flaring in the country, no matter the language some persons and groups use to justify the prohibited practice.

According to the governor, “Stopping gas flaring will be so much better for our people because the flared gas has already destroyed the environment, not just the natural habitat in terms of farming. It has also polluted very badly the air that we breathe.

“Only God knows the level of damage that it has caused and we believe that the laws must be implemented in such a manner that gas flaring is not just tied up to fines. This is because, as long as gas flaring is tied to fines, the oil companies begin to realize that it may be cheaper or easier to pay the fines than to stop the flaring of gas. Then, we obviously are not discouraging them.’’

Gov. Okowa further stated, “I am aware that a lot has been done in the last few years, but there is a lot more that can be done because the gas that we flare can generate a lot of income for the oil companies if only it can be properly utilized. So, we must stay on our laws and ensure that we do what is right and stop tying the issue of gas flaring to fines.

“This is because continually tying gas flaring to fines is injurious to our people and our environment… This has also been worsened by the regularity of illegal bunkering activities that take place in the state in which a lot of damage is done to our environment. The damage constitutes both agricultural and health hazard to the people.’’

How to remedy the situation is one problem besetting the FG, which on December 6, 2017, had said that it discovered 178 sites where gas were being flared. This was against the general speculation of 140 sites. The outcome might not have been made public if not with the efforts of the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development, USAID, and the Canadian government. A Programme Coordinator of the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialization Programme in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources in that year, Mr. Justice Derefaka, bared his mind in Abuja, at the Gas Buyers’ Forum, organized by the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria, stating that at least, the government had received 60 percent data of survey on gas flaring sites.

Notwithstanding, while speaking at the 2018 Oloibiri Lecture Series and Energy Forum, OLEF, organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers, SPE, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Maikanti Baru said Nigeria was losing N868 million daily, and 700 million SCF were being flared as gas which opinion leaders said were capable of generating an equivalent of 5,000 megawatts of electricity per day. According to the source, “Using an average of $4 per 1,000 SCF of gas and at an exchange rate of N310 to a dollar, the flaring of 700 million SCF per translates to a loss of N868 million daily to the country.”

Perhaps, seeing that the citizens were not comfortable with her many failed promises on ending gas flaring, Nigeria dished out a rather misleading statement that she had reduced gas flaring by 26 percent in the last 10 years. Yet, the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, Gas flare Deputy Director and Head Upstream, DPR, Mrs. Pat Maseli stated at the 10 annual Sub-Saharan Africa Oil and Gas Conference in Houston Texas, US, that 3,500 megawatts of electricity was lost as a result of gas flaring and no fewer than 55 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) was also lost, while 25 million tons of carbon dioxide was emitted within the period under review.

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Whilst observing the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit, NIPS, in Abuja, in February 2019, a former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, Mr. Ransome Owan, and other experts were not pleased with the development. They frowned at the lack of commitment, especially on the part of the domestic gas buyers for their nonchalant approach in the area of utilizing gas in the country, but especially the power sector. Against this backdrop, checks revealed that the majority of the oil fields in the country lack infrastructure to handle gas, hence the promotion of gas flaring.

The experts indicted Nigerian authorities for their lame-duck approach in evacuating gas to Ghana and other countries along the pipeline through West African Gas Pipeline and supplying gas to Europe through the proposed Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project. This has remained a farfetched venture and initiative.

The Programme Manager, National Liquefied Petroleum Gas Expansion Plan, Mr. Dayo Adeshina shows concern over the immense gap in LPG supply in Nigeria, crying that the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG, in the modern age, still supplies LPG to three main terminals in Lagos, while a large proportion of LPG consummated in the country is done by roads to remote locations.

In its renowned bigheaded tactics, the government in May 2018, had promised to end gas flaring by 2020, but this is also toeing the line of its foot-dragging policies. For instance, the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru had said that a three-point strategy was in place to zero flare.

He said at the 50 Offshore Technology Conference, OTC, in Houston, Texas, the United States of America that, “Total flares have been significantly reduced to current levels of about 800 million standard cubic feet per day, MMSCFD, and in the next 1-2 years we would have completely ensured zero routine flares from all the gas producers.” Meanwhile, checks revealed that companies that flare gas are yet to submit Field Development Plans, FDPs, to the Department Petroleum Resources, DPR, being the industry regulator.

The source said, “NNPC supplies about 3.6 billion standard cubic feet, SCF, of gas daily to the NLNG, while it supplies about 1.3 billion SCF of gas to the domestic market daily, which would sometimes be utilised and sometimes ignored.”

Whatever that happens to fair play, the sad side of all the illegalities of gas flaring in the Niger Delta is that oil companies do not pay gas flaring penalties, hence their slapdash behaviour amounts to loss of revenue in billions of dollars that should have been in government coffers. The then Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun cried out this in Abuja in January 2018, saying that the companies are taking advantage of the wording in the permissible framework which orders charges instead of penalties for gas-flaring.

In her words, “What do the international oil companies do? They flare; they pay the charge on which they get tax relief. That’s just bad drafting. The government is approaching lawmakers to amend the law and have the word ‘penalty’ replace ‘charge’. Just that one word has potentially cost us billions of dollars.”

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Recently, residents in the Niger Delta took with a pitch of salt the increment in punishment by the government for gas flaring to $2 per 1,000 average cubic feet of gas, SCF, from N10 per 1,000 SCF of the product flared. The move by the government was contained in a document titled ‘Flare Gas (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations 2018’, made public on October 1 2018. The residents taking the government unserious was aftermath of many policies on gas flaring that have not hold water.

Their point is that they have been enduring a long history of gas flaring since 1950s that crude oil was discovered in the area. Apart from health issues they suffer as a result of gas flaring, they also experience rusty roofs, acid rain and environmental degradation. Despite what they are enduring, many of the communities in the area do not have potable water even as their main sources of water – creeks and rivers – have been deviously polluted with oil spillages.

Our investigations from Ogbia Local Government Area, Bayelsa State to Tombia in Yenagoa Local Government Area to Gbarantoru to Angiama in Southern Ijaw council area to Ogoni in Rivers State to A’Ibom Eket, Esit Eket, Eastern Obolo, Ibeno, Mbo and Onna local government areas in Akwa Ibom State to Owaza in Abia State and so many others, reveal that the residents cannot sleep at night.

Some of the residents finger Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, as the arrowhead for their woes because of the multinational oil company’s non-stop gas flaring that also cracks their houses. Especially, residents of Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC Integrated Gbarian/Ubie Gas congregation facility weep without consolation. It is believed that in 2017 alone, over 200 people died in the Niger Delta monthly.

THE BIAFRA TIMES

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Publisher: Charles Opanwa

Inside the creeks of Niger Delta where oil goons feed fat after bribing soldiers with millions (Part 2)

By Chukwuemeka Chimerue, Chief Editor | The Biafra Times

December 15, 2018

The collusion has been going on for decades, it’s just that it has risen really high now with the economic downturn. It’s no secret that security personnel who get posted to the Niger Delta region return from their tour of duty with inexplicable wealth. It’s now a lost battle because those meant to fight the problem have since become part of the problem.

There Are More Than 300 Refining Units Around Here

Navigating across the creeks, plumes from afar and near rent the air, and the waters had turned black— it would appear a pool of black oil. Instead of lush vegetation expected of a riverine area, the trees by the banks are dying, and this is traced to the continuous activities of the either the illegal refining of crude oil or as a result of oil spills caused by the activities of oil companies around them.

“Most of the waste we discharge finds their way into the river,” Opusunju gives reason for the contamination.

“You know we have more than 300 units of this kind of refinery here, and most of them have been operating since 2012” he added.

Along the way, he would stop by some islands to check if they have products.

“Sometimes, if we don’t have enough products, we get from the others and they, too, do come to us when we have in abundance.”

We Work With The Navy, Marine Police, NSCDC And The Army

Police officers often wait to collect their shares at Borokiri.

The area is not easily accessible to those who are not in the know of the business. This reporter had posed as a potential buyer who wants the product in large quantity, and it took days of back and forth discussions before an agreement was reached.

At short intervals as he sails, Opusunju brings out his telephone to make calls, and he is heard asking, “is the coast clear?”

After two weeks that he has been out of the creeks, he explains, it is important to keep in touch with those inside so their movement is guided, especially when the news before leaving Bille jetty is that, “new federal troops are on the water”.

“We know those that are there, but when we hear they have brought in new ones, we would try and play safe,” he says.

“You know, this thing we are doing is illegal business and we must be careful,” he admits, saying it is such a profitable business, of course, with its high risks. “It costs about N15 million to set up a refining unit, but in one week of full production, one will make almost a double of the money,” he says.

We drove inside Port Harcourt sea, where oil thieves are doing business with ease. Things, however, have been running smoothly for them because they have to their side security operatives deployed to watch over the crude oil pipelines.

“We work with navy, marine police, NSCDC and the army. Although, before, it was war, they know us now.”

When a helicopter belonging to the Nigerian navy flies over the water, Opusunju wouldn’t raise his head. He keeps his clam, and laughs. “They see the flames and they know we are illegally cooking crude oil.”

For Opusunju and others, the matter is already handled as long as you ‘settle’ the security operatives.

“We do give the security operatives their own share,” he says. “They will only give you problem when you are greedy, and or you move to the federal line to get crude without putting them in the know.”

To move a loaded barge to and fro, the oil thieves say, they pay up to N1 million to ‘settle’ security operatives on duty. Barges are moved on a weekly basis, giving the operatives an avenue to illegally rake in millions.

Illegal Refined Products Do Not Have The Required Numbering

Opusunju: “They see the flames and they know we are illegally cooking crude oil.

Akuma Oji, a technical assistant at the centre for gas refining and petrochemical (CGRP) at the University of Port Harcourt, says that they’ve known about the oil theft in the area as far back as 2008.

“We felt they take crude, and initially we didn’t know what they do with it,” he explains.

“We later found they take the crude and sell them off. Super tankers from abroad would come and lift them to other countries. It was an assumption though, that those people come to buy them at cheaper rate.”

Within 2010 and 2011, Oji says they started noticing how the business of illegal refining of crude was now on the rise. The researchers were carrying out an environmental impact study in the areas where oil companies operate when they saw this.

“We know they used to refine in creeks far from where people are, and the military had always tracked them, destroying the facilities. But recently, the activities are happening even in nearby places and it is like a compromise on the part of the security operatives.”

He explains that the crude oil contains many fractions, and when properly refined, gasoline is obtained from the light end and others from the heavy end.

“But since those in the creeks do not have the separation techniques, they just waste other things after getting diesel.”

Apart from the effect on the environment, Oji says the product from the illegal refineries is not good for engines.

“By blend, this product doesn’t have the required numbering. There are light and heavy diesel, but these guys can’t differentiate, they only keep heating the crude and wouldn’t know when the light diesel had gone.”

In the standard refinery, catalysts are added in the heating process for effective separation of the products.

“Thermal conversion will separate the fractions, and catalytic conversion cause the heavy fractions to turn to light and instead of having those residuals.”

Oji says what illegal refiners are able to get is just about 30% from the whole, and this is, definitely having an effect on Nigeria’s economy.

READ PART 1: Inside the creeks of Niger Delta where oil thieves feed fat after bribing soldiers with millions (Part 1)

The academic, however, suggests the way out is for the government to reach an agreement with those involved in the illegality.

“It may be difficult for the government to stop this, because people are daily joining in this business. Even the military guys are taking their own share and using force might not work again. I believe we can train these guys and help them improve.”

In 2017, the government had announced that 10 modular refineries were being developed in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Imo states. With a refining capacity of 300,000 barrels, the government said it would ensure self-sufficiency of petroleum products while serving as a disincentive for illegal refineries and oil pollution. But the project is yet to see the light of the day.

The Thriving Business

Nigerian refineries are mostly non-functional, and a considerable number of filling stations across Rivers and Bayelsa states rely largely on products from the ‘river.’ Products are loaded in barges, different sizes of boats and moved to the shores in Port Harcourt and other places for delivery.

Tankers come as far as Kano and Kaduna states to get products from the illegal refineries down the south.

“It is always available and cheap,” a tanker driver in Port Harcourt says.

Before leaving for Kalakurama, Opusunju would check on one of his customers around Borokiri area of Port Harcourt whom he says was owing about N2 million, money for products delivered to her weeks ago.

Every corner in Borokiri are stores stocked with these products and transactions are ongoing without interference of police who are expected to check on the illegal activities.

Behind the police station in the Marine Base area of Port Harcourt is a flowing river whose bank serves as another oil trading hub. Strangers, when noticed, are quickly accosted by some teenagers, pulling them to their side, and giving the prices of what they have in stock.

The products here are, mostly, diesel and kerosene.

As early as 7am, a particular model of Toyota Camry cars waits by the riverbank to load products. The products are carefully emptied from the drum into large size nylons, tied and put in the boot.

At the entrance of Okrika town, just opposite the Port Harcourt refinery, is an array of women and men with different sizes of flat-sided containers filled with the products. Motorists, small-scale business owners are regular visitors of Hilary, a middle-aged woman whose rack is located by the pipes running into the refinery opposite her.

“We get our supply, mostly from the river,” Hilary says, admitting the products are from illegal refineries.

Economic Hardship In Nigeria

The harsh economic meltdown in the country has also contributed a great deal to the activities of the oil goons, making the country to lose about N3.8 trillion within the last two years. NNRC estimated the financial value of what Nigeria has lost to be higher than the country’s 2018 budgets for health and education.

“Over the last decade, oil theft has risen to unprecedented levels, peaking between 2011 and 2014. The inability of the government and oil companies to curb this epidemic has made Nigeria the country most plagues by oil theft in the world,” the report read.

In 2015, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had said Nigeria loses about 400,000 barrels of oil daily to thieves and this amounts to about N4.8 billion. He had promised that the government would priotise the security of the oil sector, not knowing that the security personnel are part of the shady deal.

At a programme in June, Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, spoke on the need to checkmate the activities of those perpetrating this act.

“For the fact that vessels can actually come through the security corridors and pick up oil is even much more troubling. It may not have been oil, it may have been arms. Something needs to be done in terms of security and environment as well as the economy of the country.” he had said.

Poverty, unemployment and poor governance, NNRC, in the recent report, identifies as major reasons for the emergence and sustenance of oil theft in Nigeria.

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Inside the creeks of Niger Delta where oil thieves feed fat after bribing soldiers with millions (Part 1)

By Chukwuemeka Chimerue, Chief Editor | The Biafra Times

November 12, 2018

The collusion has been going on for decades, it’s just that it has risen really high now with the economic downturn. It’s no secret that security personnel who get posted to the Niger Delta region return from their tour of duty with inexplicable wealth. It’s now a lost battle because those meant to fight the problem have since become part of the problem.

Introduction:

Nigeria has lost more than N3 trillion to oil thieves in the last two years, according to a report Nigeria Natural Resource Charter (NNRC) released in August. Being an economy dependent on oil, the activities of these ‘saboteurs’ constitute a major threat to the finance of government. To check oil theft, the government of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan engaged “reformed” militants to protect pipelines. Although this did not lead to the total eradication of vandals, it reduced the criminal act.

The current administration, however, revoked the contracts and made new arrangements but the creek manors are still having a field day. Operating across hidden islands in the Niger Delta, the oil thieves siphon products from pipelines of oil companies in the middle of the night and refine them before disbursing to willing buyers.

Disguising as a potential buyer and at some point a researcher, our impeccable source uncovered the operations of the vandals who confessed to rendering security operatives powerless with bribes running into millions of naira.

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From the Bille jetty in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, the boat snaked through sleeping rivers to the wavy sea, and after four hours traversing the waters, docked at Kalakurama, an island of about 100 dwellers – mostly fishermen, and those into the business of illegal oil bunkering.

Just a few kilometers after Bille, the largest island on the route, is the heavy presence of security operatives whose uniforms and insignia on gunboats gave out as those from the Nigerian navy. Like the experience with the police on a road journey, boats, when approaching the patrolling naval gunboats would move at slow pace, with passengers’ hands in the air for what can be described as stop and search.

Bille jetty dock

Within this region where the officers are seen, are tens of high-pressure pipelines — bearing the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) brand— running deep into the sea.

“That’s where we get the crude from,” Opusunju, a 35-year-old man who left his driving job for illegal oil bunkering, taps this reporter gently on the shoulder as the boat sailed away from the naval officers’ muzzles.

Curiously raising an eyebrow at Opunsunju to check the possibility of beating these heavily armed security operatives to access the pipelines, he responds with a smile that suggests this, the least of worries for the oil thieves.

We Do This In The Middle Of The Night

Surprisingly, the journey wouldn’t end at the shore of Kalakurama, where teenage boys are tending to a dozen boats filled with cans, and docked by the island. The boys, whose oily bodies glitter under the mild sun, are conversing in Hausa. Most of them had come from the northern part of Nigeria. They work here under the supervision of those in the illegal business.

“It is from here we start the journey to where we operate,” Opusunju says, as he is welcomed by Patrick, his partner. “Those boys are the ones we use to help load products from our refinery down here,” he adds.

The island, hidden between the waters, Opusunju and Patrick describe as a safe haven for their business. Before now, they had operated from an island on the other side of the river, but they moved to Kalakurama when they became targets of security operatives and the original dwellers couldn’t accommodate them anymore.

“Nobody comes here except fishermen who live here and some of us who are into this oil business,” Opusunju says, untying his boat from its anchor. Commercial boats that convey passengers from Port Harcourt stop and turn back at Bille, but only a few would agree to reach Kalakurama. It is from here Opusunju, and others in the business with him, pick their own boats and head for the inlet where the crude oil is being refined. The sun is setting, and as Opusunju ignites the engine of his boat, he hands rain boot and a head torch to this reporter.

“We operate in the middle of the night, but I need to go check first if we have products left to be moved.”

The operations are in stages - starting from those who burst the high-pressure pipelines to get the crude oil.

“We get the crude from the federal line,” he says, making a note of the pipelines sailed past after Bille.

“There are people who would trace pipes running from under the sea to the flow-station. We then hire highly technical welders who dig deep, open the valves running with the crude oil, and connect our own pipes, diverting the crude to our loading boats.”

Loading empty cans

A loading boat, he explains, is sometimes big it has the capacity to take more than 300,000 liters of the crude.

“You only need a little opening from the valve and the crude starts gushing, because of the pressure, and in one night, we can load six to seven boats. We do this in the middle of the night, because during the day Shell, who has the highest stake, are moving up and down with their chopper, looking after the pipelines.”

When the boats are loaded, the crude oil is then moved to the substandard refineries.

Only Diesel Is Processed, Others Waste
On fractional distillation of crude oil in a standard refinery, not less than 20 products can be obtained, and this includes gas, petrol, kerosene, lubricants, and asphalt.

The technologies to get the best out of the crude oil, however, are not available to Opusunju and his fellow operators in other creeks the reporter visited. When the crude is brought to their creeks, it is transferred into tanks where it undergoes heating process.

After moving about 30 kilometers away from Kalakurama, Opunsunju pulls the boat over, and with this reporter, he walks carefully through the oily and marshy ground up to where tanks of different sizes are erected.

“This is our own refinery,” he begins.

There is a tank - sitting on what looks like a furnace that collects the crude oil, and it has pipes running into the next tank that serves as a coolant— supplying water on the running pipes, and from here a lone pipe runs into the third tank that collects the product(s). The tank serving as storage, after each production, would take at least 500,000 litres of the product.

“We put the crude inside this tank we call oven or pot, and this other one water is pumped in to cool these pipes because when the crude is being cooked everywhere gets so hot.”

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“Cooking” the crude

He explains that after hours of heating, the products are being separated and through the second tank, it comes out from the lone pipe.

“The fuel, kerosene, and diesel come out as only one product which is, diesel and the heaviest,” he says.

“There is no way we can separate them, so all of the products will form into diesel, and that’s all we are after.”

After diesel has been extracted, other possible products are discharged through pipes as waste.

Spread all over the area is sediments of asphalts which Opusunju regrets they are left to waste.

“A small sack of this alone sells for N3,000, but nobody is able to come here and we can’t move them out,” he says.

“We leave other products to waste, and it is this diesel we are able to get we load into market boats to sell to waiting customers.”

Sometimes, they get kerosene but in a smaller quantity.

“In a production, we may get six or seven drums of kerosene, where diesel is in hundreds of drums.”

THE BIAFRA TIMES

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‘Oil discovery, a curse to us’ – Late Ken Saro-Wiwa’s daughter relieves life experience in Nigeria

By Chukwuemeka Chimerue, Chief Editor | The Biafra Times

October 19, 2018

Zina Saro-Wiwa, daughter of the hanged environmental rights activist, Kenule Saro-Wiwa, said it is a curse that oil was ever discovered in the Niger-Delta.

Zina, who is currently holding her first solo gallery show in London said in an interview with ArtForum: “We don’t control the oil that is extracted and exported from under our feet, and our fishing and farming have been severely disrupted as a result of extractive processes.

“It’s a shame that oil was found somewhere as verdant and fecund as the Niger-Delta. It would’ve been better if this had happened somewhere unpopulated, such as in a desert. But this is where the oil is, and it is in this contested landscape that I have made an artistic intervention.

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“I’d been a radio and TV journalist in the past. But when approaching the Niger-Delta, the place of my birth, the experience was so overwhelming for me that a journalistic lens wasn’t ever going to be fulfilling. That’s a large part of the reason why art attracted me.

“It gave me the latitude and the space to allow the Niger-Delta speak to me and speak through me. I wasn’t willing to go there with anything fixed in mind – I wanted the place to tell me what it wanted to say.”

Her show, which is titled: The Turquoise Meat Inside, is a photographic and video work, set in the Niger-Delta and is currently on display at the Tiwani Contemporary, London until October 27, 2018.

The Biafra Times
Publisher: Chijindu Benjamin Ukah
Contact us: [email protected]