02-08-03 Pirates are stealing Nigeria's crude oil at a phenomenal rate, funnelling nearly 100,000 bpd from Africa's top oil producer and selling it illegally on the international market, oil industry officials said. The figures, which would mean a daily loss of millions of dollars, is roughly a third of the amount claimed earlier. Governor Ibori told that the country was losing about 300,000 bpd to thieves, for a total annual loss in profits of $ 3.5 bn.
"Contacts are already being made with the countries and individuals involved in the purchase of this illegal product," he said, after a meeting with President Olusegun Obasanjo. "Nigeria is losing $ 3.5 bn per year because of this illegal activity," he said. "We intend to deal with this problem both from the users' and sellers' point of view."
Nigeria is the world's fifth largest exporter of crude oil. Oil "bunkering" -- the theft of crude from pipelines and oil facilities -- fuels criminality in the southern Niger Delta, heartland of Africa's biggest oil industry and home to gangs of waterborne bandits. Armed gangs clash over supplies of oil, which is siphoned off into barges and tankers and exported.
Oil industry officials, who said a more reasonable estimate of theft was roughly 100,000 bpd of crude, said the crude was then shipped to refineries in Europe, North America and along the coast of west Africa. The gangs are widely believed to have strong political connections and sometimes operate in collusion with members of the security forces.

Nigeria's OPEC export quota is just over 2 mm bpd, but it often exports more in breach of its treaty obligation, and the smuggled crude is not included in the calculation. The vast profits to be made from oil theft, smuggling and blackmailing oil firms have fed a surge in lawlessness in the Delta, fuelling ethnic rivalries whose communities battle for control for oil field areas.
Earlier, serious violence erupted for the second time this year between the rival Ijaw and Itsekiri groups who live in the swamps west of the oil city of Warri, leading to at least two dozen deaths.