PRESIDENT BUHARI REPORTEDLY BARS 113 OIL VESSELS FROM LIFTING NIGERIAN CRUDE OIL

One of the blacklisted oil vessels, MV Cosgrace Lake

President Muhammadu Buhari has reportedly blacklisted 113 vessels – preventing them from lifting Nigerian crude oil. According to Sahara Reporters, this step is being taken as part of efforts to sanitize Nigeria’s oil industry which is said to be plagued by corruption, massive fraud, and crude theft.

The directive was revealed via a memo signed by the NNPC’s group managing director, G.O  Komolafe. It listed the 27 terminals from which the vessels are prohibited from lift Nigerian crude, and instructed affected terminals to prevent the vessels from lifting crude oil within Nigeria’s territorial waters until further notice.

According to the report:

A source at the Presidency told SaharaReporters that the blacklisted vessels were implicated in a pattern of fraud that resulted in the shortchanging of Nigerians. “Many of the vessels had documents in Chinese, Russian or French names, and used these different languages to hide their illicit lifting of Nigerian crude,” said the source. He added that numerous officials of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the NNPC as well as the Ministry of Petroleum were involved in facilitating the illegal lifting of Nigerian crude.

Komolafe’s memo also announced that the blacklisted vessels would be prohibited from operating within Nigeria’s territorial waters.

Sahara reporters learnt that the vessels were mostly linked with oil bunkering and sophisticated theft of crude from numerous NNPC loading facilities.

Here is a list of the 27 terminals  from which vessels are barred from lifting Nigerian crude:

• Forcados
• Bonny
• BongaSea
• Eagle
• Qua lboe
• Erha
• Yoho
• Usan
• Bonny River Terminal
• Escravos
• Agbami
• Pennington
• Escravos LPG FSO
• Escravos Gas Terminal
• Antan
• Okwori
• Odudu
• Akpo
• Brass
• Abo
• Okono
• Oyo
• lma
• Okoro
• Ukpokiti
• Tulja
• Ebok

Here is a copy of the letter in which the directive was issued:

Photo Credit: Sahara Reporters/MarineTraffic.com

Storycredit:bellanaija.com