Nigeria receives warships to protect citizens, crude oil

Sept. 15, 2003
Nigeria has received a third US warship under a security cooperation program aimed at ending crude oil theft and civil unrest in the Niger Delta.

By Eric Watkins
Middle East Correspondent


NICOSIA, Sept 15 -- Nigeria has received a third US warship under a security cooperation program aimed at ending crude oil theft and civil unrest in the Niger Delta.

The NNS Nwambe is one of seven former Coast Guard cutters being refurbished and sent to Nigeria by the US Department of Defense. The first two ships arrived in March and the remainder are due before yearend.

Priced at $3.5 million each, the vessels arrive without arms and ammunition but are fitted with cannons and machine guns by the Nigerian authorities before deployment.

"Our national assets in the sea are worth billions of dollars and the arrival of NNS Nwambe would help to safeguard them," said head of Nigeria's navy, Vice-Admiral Samuel Afolayan, in an official statement.

Armed gangs mounted on barges prowl the Niger Delta swamp to find exposed sections of pipeline. Using a technique known as hot-tapping, they puncture trunklines and fit their own valves to divert tonnes of crude into their boats.

Nigerian authorities estimate that criminal gangs operating in the oil region are stealing 200,000-300,000 b/d of crude oil—about 10-15% of daily production—and transferring it to ocean-going vessels for sale abroad.

Oil industry officials said that international syndicates take much of the stolen oil to refineries in West Africa, but some cargoes get as far as Europe, in particular to the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

It is believed that money from the illegal oil transfers is used to buy modern weapons, including assault rifles, machine guns, and rocket launchers that arm pirates and ethnic militias around the strife-torn delta area.

Even though the fighting has forced Shell, ChevronTexaco, and Total to shut down most of their oil wells in the western Delta itself, oil is still pouring out of the disputed region and on to the international market.

Nigeria's federal government, under President Olusegun Obasanjo, has intensified efforts to cut off the flow of stolen oil.

Following pressure from the government in Abuja, Ivory Coast's state-run oil refinery, which Nigeria suspects of buying bunkered crude, signed a deal in August to import 30,000 b/d legally.

While that deal may stem the flow of illicit oil to nearby refineries, oil company executives say the traffic is likely to continue to more distant destinations unless further action is taken.

A beefed-up Nigerian navy is thought to be the best means of stopping that flow.

Afolayan, said in June that stepped-up operations of the Nigerian navy, had "greatly reduced illegalities of petroleum products lifting, vandalization of petroleum pipelines, smuggling, illegal bunkering, poaching, and piracy in our territorial waters."

At the same time, he said: "there is no doubt that the recorded successes would have been [greater] if the Navy had required platforms for logistics and support duties."