Nigeria loses $14 billion a year to the highly lucrative and illegal business of oil bunkering, the President of the Corporate Council on Africa, Stephen Hayes has said.
Hayes who spoke to THISDAY in Washington DC arrived at the figure based on the number of barrels per day that the country loses on oil.
According to him, �if you are losing 600,000 barrels a day on oil at $70 a barrel, you are losing $12 million a day on oil theft. Every five days, that means $200 million, $210 every 25 days, $1 billion of theft on oil. Extrapolate that � 25 days a month, 12 months in a year and you know you are losing $12 billion. But there�s five extra months so you�re losing $14 billion in oil in a year.�
On measures to be taken to solve the problem, Energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, Alex Iannaccone told THISDAY that there should be proper metering on all oil and gas installations, in addition to fighting corruption.
His words: �Metering means measuring how much oil is moving through Nigeria. How much is being produced, loaded and shipped elsewhere. To get effective metering would mean tackling the whole issue of corruption. Corruption is the root of the problem.�
Continuing, he said �the people I have spoken to say the bunkering happens on two different levels � a small scale locally and then there�s this very highly organized oil theft that exists. The other way to tackle it is by approaching corruption and doing so in a way that you are measuring the oil that is moving through the system at all the key points.�
According to Iannaccone, corrupt government institutions over the years have allowed oil bunkering to happen on a larger scale. And the lack of comprehensive programme by the federal government to arrest the situation has allowed such activities to go on undisturbed.
Responding to a question on other countries that are facing similar problem, Iannaccone said Nigeria is the �poster child� for oil bunkering with �incredible� figures reeling out from data on the issue. He however mentioned that Iraq during the regime of the late Saddam Hussein had a highly organized oil bunkering operation to sell oil on the international market because of the sanctions placed on the government.
Today, the problem persists because the institutions are still in place, he says.
In his view, some initiatives like the Nigerian Extractive Industry and Transparency Initiative (NEITI) aimed at getting oil companies to publish their numbers and be more transparent is what Nigeria needs at this point. Asked if he thinks other agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has made progress and could make a contribution in this area, he answered in the positive.
�The NEITI and the EFCC are the sort of things that I think Nigeria really needs. They are big points in the last administration. I think if the new administration wants to have success in tacking corruption, it�s going to embark on kind of similar programme,� he said.
Aug282007