Nigeria’s navy arrested a vessel carrying 441,953 liters of suspected stolen crude oil in the country’s southern Niger River delta, Jerry Unoarumhi, a navy commander, told reporters today in the oil industry hub of Port Harcourt.
The crew of the vessel, which was stopped near the Nun River by a military patrol on Aug. 16, “had no valid document to confirm the source of what it was carrying,” he said. The arrested crew are being held at a military camp near the Brass oil export terminal, he added.
Africa’s top oil producer loses an average of 300,000 barrels of the commodity everyday to criminal gangs that steal from pipelines and illegally sell to tankers on the coast, according to the Petroleum Ministry.
Aug192011