BLP Oil & Gas Update Creative Doc.pdf April 2014 | Page 4
facility in Port Harcourt to identify threats, detect leaks and intrusions and
plan responses.
The US company submitted a further proposal in 2012 for a consortium of firms
to provide pipeline security services to the NNPC, including surveillance and
metering with a fully functioning control centre.
Without direct and technologically sophisticated action at each stage of the
oil transportation process, which is managed by national and local resources
capable of being held accountable for their actions or inaction, it’s unlikely
that any progress will be made in reducing the oil theft.
Plan of action
Realistically, it may be unattractive to pursue funds generated by the small
scale and local oil theft. A better approach would be to install prevention
measures through a combination of sophisticated pipeline monitoring and
efficient local policing. Given the large sums of money made from the theft,
the government and oil companies should consider action to trace and
recover funds generated by bunkering and topping up oil theft. Much more
intelligence work would have to be done on the ground in Nigeria before
any progress could be made. Investigations by corporate intelligence firms
and forensic accountants working in partnership with government authorities
would have to find:
Precisely how much oil is transferred between export terminals and
tankers and how this process is monitored;
Corruption and bribery among the employees working at the terminals;
Patterns of tanker movement for those tankers regularly receiving oil
from the terminals. Evidence would have to be found where have the
tankers come from and where are they going? Where are they
registered and by what or whom are they owned? What are the
nationalities shown on the crew manifest?
The corporate entities used to pay for legal oil cross-referenced against
any suspicious ship movement, ownership or registration;