rolchi:
Mr. Buhari really needs to take time and understand the workings of the Nigerian Oil Industry if he really wants to sanitize and reform it! What is happening so far is that people in his restrictive inner circle just rush to him with incredulous figures which he gets excited about and starts chasing! People break pipelines and steal crude oil daily in Nigeria and ship same to vessels offshore which co-load the stolen crude oil with legally loaded crude oil and transport same to various refineries abroad! But Nigerian crude is legally sold FOB (Free on Board) by NNPC so the title of the oil changes from NNPC to the lifting entity once the loading hoses are disconnected from the vessel. When the vessel departs the Nigerian loading terminal, the oil does not belong to Nigeria anymore! Such legal Liftings are secured by Irrevocable Letters of Credit that ensures NNPC is paid and these payments are made to either the CBN Federation Account, CBN FIRS Account, and CBN DPR Accounts all at JP Morgan Chase Bank in New York. No money would ever be found to be missing from those accounts (No matter what Emir Sanusi says)! If a vessel that legally loads crude oil at any terminal, stops mid sea to take on an additional crude oil that may have been stolen; it becomes very complex to trace; as the same vessel may also stop in Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, etc to take on an additional cargo that is legally sold to the off-taker! Throw in this mix the fact that the title of the crude oil may change up-to 5 times (what the traders call the lifting chain) before it gets to its final destination and you can see how difficult it is to trace these transactions! For example, a very large crude carrier (VLCC) loads a 950,000 barrel cargo at Forcados Terminal in Nigeria, loads a 1 million Barrels cargo Nemba cargo in Angola, and in between accepts 200,000 barrel cargo stolen crude off shore Nigeria and sails to India and Singapore. The 950,000 barrels Forcados might have been legally sold by Shell Trading to a Swiss Based Trader. The Nemba cargo might have been legally sold by Sonangol (the National Oil Company of Angola) to a London Trader co-chartering the vessel with the Swiss Trader. The 200,000 stolen crude may have been sold by the thieves to a third entity that has also reserved space on the same VLCC. Tracing the transaction involves getting the OUT-TURN figures at the various discharge ports from the off-taking entities!! But how do you prove and tie-back to Nigeria when the vessel loaded from many ports legally and volumes legally change in transit due to temperature conditions? Mr. Buhari may be better off increasing the capacity of the Nigerian Maritime authorities to track and monitor vesels in Nigerian coastal waters using satellite/drone technology! He may also be better off biting the bullet and removing the fuel subsidy in the prevailing low oil price environment before the window closes on him! By the way, his directive to NNPC to ban more than 100 vessels from Nigerian waters has shot up the freight rates from Nigeria in the past one week, making Nigerian Crude Oil Prices very uncompetitive in the international market! As the unsold cargoes (more than 10 million barrels for July remain unsold) pile up; Mr. Buhari would come to realize that Nigerians cannot drink crude oil.

Source: http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/buhari-leahy-law-hindering-fight-against-boko-haram/215396/
(Maria Darego commented on the Thisday News)