The European Parliament may soon be demanding from sellers of stolen crude the certificate of origin for their products. This was one of the decisions taken at the meeting of the members of the African, Caribbean, Pacific Parliaments and their European Union counterparts at the conclusion of their recent meeting in Abuja.
According to Mitchell Rivasi, acting President of ACP-EU, the need to stop the huge loss of Nigeria’s oil to thieves necessitated the decision. Said Rivasi: “We want to ban European refineries from buying uncertificated oil. 400,000 barrels a day is a huge loss. We need to get traceability of oil to avoid theft. The oil companies are involved in this and everybody is making big money. The bunkering tankers are better equipped than the Nigerian Navy. This is a huge international organised crime. We did it with diamond; we can also do it with oil”.
While it is noteworthy that the international community is paying attention to the monumental loss of Nigeria’s prime asset, it would appear that the local authorities seem to have given up on any serious attempts to rein in the criminal gangs. Yet there can be no solution until Nigerians themselves resolve to fight the menace. Last week, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) disclosed that the nation has lost over 136 million barrels of crude oil estimated at $10.9 billion through pilfering and sabotage between 2009 and 2011. This was one of the findings in the audit report of operations in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, which covered the period under review.
