113 Vessels Banned By President Buhari From Lifting Nigeria's Crude Oil

As part of an effort to sanitize Nigeria’s oil industry plagued by corruption, crude theft and massive fraud, President Muhammadu Buhari has blacklisted 113 vessels from lifting Nigerian crude oil.

According to a memo from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), President Buhari directed the country’s oil corporation to bar 113 vessels from lifting Nigeria crude oil from 27 designated terminals. The memo, 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 memo listed 27 terminals from which the vessels are prohibited to lift Nigeria's 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 blacklisted vessels, according to a source at the Presidency who spoke to SaharaReporters, 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 Jonathan’s administration, the NNPC as well as the Ministry of Petroleum were involved in facilitating the illegal lifting of Nigerian crude.

The memo also announced that the blacklisted vessels would be prohibited from operating within Nigeria’s territorial waters, as they were mostly linked with oil bunkering and sophisticated theft of crude from numerous NNPC loading facilities.

See list of prohibited  vessels below: