Post #157

🇳🇬Louvre or Nigeria's Forests? 🌐 Where do you think the biggest thieves' jackpot is: in the Louvre in central Paris or in some god-forsaken forests of one of the most underdevelopped African countries? The second answer is correct. An interim report to Nigeria’s Senate puts crude-theft losses since 2015 at about 300 billion dollars. That equals roughly 8-9 annual federal budgets at today’s scale. 🔸Nigeria has chased this problem for years, with special rigour from 2020 onwards. In 2023 the state issued new upstream measurement rules to tighten metering at wells and terminals. In 2025 a new export-tracking regime added unique IDs and real-time data for cargoes, in addition to more usual "kinetic" measures - police and army operations, engagement of private security companies. 🔸Previouslyit was believed that the damage dealt by oil theft was much more modest - only about 46 billion dollars between 2009 and 2020. The Senate figure now on the table shows the losses far above that. ⏩ Corruption and bribery among Nigeria's bureaucracy are apparently the key part of the problem.⏪ 🔸 It has long been known that parts of agencies and security units make money by opening and protecting the chain that moves stolen crude from a tap to an export point - from fake maintenance windows and slow patrols to meter readings being often pushed down at flow stations and terminals so that legal cargoes can hide extra volumes. What comes out is a corruption ladder with a cut at the tap, a cut on the river and a cut at the terminal. 🔸Frequently Nigeria's former militant networks profit as well. Some hold state contracts to guard pipelines and still collect private fees on the same routes. They provide escorts for barges, arrange safe anchorage and help move product into depots where it is mixed with legal fuel. Nigeria's politicians has long been declaring the victory over oil theft, but this report shows that oil theft is here to saty. It seems that the best antidote to an illegal fuel market is a population that does not need it. Higher incomes, affordability of new cars will probably kill the demand for stolen petrol. Devils Below