Nigeria loses $1bn to Illegal Bunkering Annually as Oil Companies Patronise Illicit Market

Nigeria loses an estimated $1 billion yearly in the West African bunkering market valued at over $3 billion as some oil companies operating in the country patronise cheaper petroleum products sourced from illegal bunkering activities to fuel marine vessels and Floating Production Storage Offloading vessels (FPSOs), THISDAY’s investigation has revealed.

In the global petroleum and marine industries, oil bunkering is a legitimate business that involves the process of supplying vessels with fossil fuel products such as diesel, Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) and Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO), which are also used by oil firms largely as bunkers for their vessels and to power their drilling rigs for exploration and production.

Investigation showed that most leading international and indigenous oil and gas companies, through their procurement process, have continued to patronise illegally refined products and products obtained from vandalised pipelines, thus aiding and abetting crude oil theft and robbing the country of revenue from genuine bunkering operators.

It was gathered that the loss of revenue by the country from illegal bunkering is worsened by the fact that foreign vessels that come to Nigeria choose to refuel offshore Cotonou and Ghana for security reasons.

THISDAY, September 5, 2017

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