The United Kingdom and some other European countries have allegedly been receiving stolen crude oil from Nigeria in contravention of the laws and Memoranda of Understanding forbidding such illegal sale of the product, our correspondent has learnt.
A week long investigation by our correspondent revealed that between 2013 and 2017, an unspecified number of barrels of Nigerian crude were sold illegally to buyers in the UK and some other European countries.
It was, however, learnt that the stolen crude was sold below the international market price.
To the receivers of the illegal crude, the laws and MoUs only exist on paper as Nigeria continues to lose multi-billion naira worth of the product on a daily basis. On the average, Nigeria produces about 2 million barrels of crude daily and loses 900,000 barrels daily, in addition to those lost to pipeline vandals and illegal diversions.
Barely four years ago, Nigeria signed a joint agreement with some European countries and the United Kingdom. The countries involved had agreed to the introduction of the accompanying Certificate of Origin as a way of preventing stolen crude from entering the European market.
The decision was jointly shared by member countries following a three-day regional meeting that took place in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory in 2013.
The then President of ACP-EU, Mitchell Rivasi, and former Co-Secretary General, Joyce Laboso, had told the public that the need to stem the huge loss of Nigeria’s crude to organised syndicates of oil thieves called for a timely decision.
“We want to ban European refineries from buying uncertificated oil. We need to get traceability of oil to avoid theft. The oil companies are involved in this and everybody is making big money,” Laboso had said.
She noted that the bunkering tankers were better equipped and managed than the Nigerian Navy vessels for the international organised crime.
Chatham House, a London based firm, had some years back revealed how so much crude oil from Nigeria was stolen by syndicates just as terminals, too, were known to have recorded a staggering level of outright theft.
