Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (8152)	7/12/2008 9:35:47 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24235

Nigeria navy arrests Filipinos on ship of stolen oil By Segun Owen Fri Jul 11, 6:02 PM ET YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - The Nigerian navy has arrested 15 Filipinos after intercepting a vessel carrying a significant quantity of stolen crude oil off the coast of the Niger Delta, a senior military official said on Friday. Gunboats intercepted the MV Lina Panama in the waters off Brass, home to a major oil export terminal in the southern state of Bayelsa, the heartland of Africa's biggest oil industry. One security source said the vessel was thought to be carrying tens of thousands of tonnes of stolen oil. "Two of our gunships accosted the ship off the coast of Brass ... and the men could not account for how they came about the crude oil on board," Brigadier-General Wuyep Rimtip, head of the military task force in the western delta, told Reuters. He said the 15 Filipinos had been taken to the military's headquarters in the town of Warri. A private security contractor working in the oil industry said two Nigerians had escaped the military raid by jumping overboard. Nigeria is the world's eighth biggest exporter of crude oil but a sizeable proportion of its output is stolen by thieves who either drill into pipelines or hijack barges loaded with oil, theft that is known locally as "bunkering." Some estimates put the amount of crude stolen from Nigeria's Niger Delta at 100,000 barrels per day, equivalent to around $14 million daily or $5.1 billion a year at current prices. It is shipped out of Nigeria and sold on the international market. Human Rights Watch has put the amount stolen at two or three times that level. The Nigerian navy has seized barges carrying stolen crude in the past, but Rimtip said it was relatively rare to capture a vessel so large, into which hijacked barges are unloaded. "The quantity of crude involved was quite enormous. We are happy that we have got one of these vessels because one vessel can carry so many barge loads," he said. Bunkering and attacks on oil pipelines in the Niger Delta have cut Nigeria's output by around a fifth in recent years, helping push world oil prices to record highs. President Umaru Yar'Adua is under international pressure to crack down on the criminality and restore some of Nigeria's lost output to help take the pressure of global oil prices and lessen the burden on consumer economies. Yar'Adua called earlier this week for a global clampdown on the theft and smuggling of crude oil, an international trade which he said was fuelling unrest in the delta. He told a summit of leaders from the Group of Eight rich nations in Japan that he would soon present a proposal to the United Nations laying out steps to end the illicit trade. news.yahoo.com