President Muhammadu Buhari has banned 113 vessels from lifting crude oil and gas from 27 designated terminals in the country.
A memo dated July 15 that originated from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which was signed by the NNPC’s group managing director, G.O Komolafe, directed affected terminals to prevent the vessels from lifting crude oil within Nigeria’s territorial waters until further notice.
The Maritime Trade Intelligence reported that the memo, which is published on the SaharaReporters website (listed 27 terminals from which the vessels are prohibited to lift Nigerian crude.
The terminals are Forcados, Bonny, Bonga, Sea 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, and Ebok.
The memo, which is addressed to all terminal operators, said: "I am directed to convey to you the directives of Mr President, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, regarding prohibition of some crude oil vessels.
The whole list of 113 crude oil vessels indicated in the spreadsheet attached herewith have been prohibited forthwith from engaging in crude oil/gas loading activities in any of the terminals within the Nigerian territorial waters till further notice.
The affected vessels have been barred from movements within the Nigerian territorial waters forthwith. Finally, enforcement of the above directives takes immediate effect pending a notice to the contrary by Government."
A Presidential source 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.
SaharaReporters said that the vessels were mostly linked with oil bunkering and the sophisticated theft of crude from numerous NNPC loading facilities.