Nigeria cracks down on illicit refineries
KANA RUGBANA, Nigeria — Nigerian commander Remi Fadairo points to the roiling plume of black smoke blotting the morning horizon in the Niger Delta — the unmistakable sign of an illicit oil refinery.
“Let’s see if we can go eat them for breakfast,” he says with an ominous chuckle.
The 44-year-old colonel, with broad shoulders and his fatigues tucked into gumboots, is standing in the middle of a destroyed illicit refinery in Kana Rugbana, an area in the swamplands some 37 kilometers from Port Harcourt.
Fadairo is part of the Joint Task Force Operation Delta Safe, a coalition of Nigerian security forces tasked with protecting the country’s oil and gas infrastructure.
Last year, militant attacks cut oil production to 1.4 million barrels per day in August, triggering Nigeria’s worst economic slump in 25 years.
Following talks with the government, the militants have suspended their sabotage. But Nigerian troops on the ground say the battle isn’t over, it’s just changed.
Today, the military says one of its priorities is to crack down on the illicit refineries that they claim fund the operations of the militants.
“The two are interwoven, if they aren’t doing militancy, they are doing this,” Fadairo said as he waded through crude-soaked muck.
Despite the site looking like a scrap yard, Fadairo says it actually is being rehabilitated, showing new silver pipes welded to a rusted metal container.
On the ground between iridescent oil puddles lay little sachets of gin, empty packets of instant noodles and cigarette butts left by the bush distillers.
“We just destroyed all this but they are back,” says Fadairo. “They are trying to revive it.”
The illicit refineries are just one component of oil theft in Nigeria, a mammoth industry estimated to be worth as much as $8 billion a year, according to a 2013 report by Chatham House, a London think tank.
In the past month, Fadairo’s troops have destroyed more than 10 illicit refineries, which process oil stolen from the pipelines of multinational companies by heating it in carsized metal containers.
The waste is dumped into the surrounding swamplands.
These artisanal refineries, as they are sometimes called, employ upward of 50 men each, who work through the night to avoid detection.
They offer a rare job opportunity to thousands of unemployed men in the Niger Delta suffering from extreme poverty.
For militants like the Niger Delta Avengers, who say crude is their birthright, refining represents something bigger — a chance to take back oil profits from corporations and the Nigerian government.
Perhaps recognizing that fighting illicit refineries is an exercise in futility, as part of the government’s Niger Delta outreach program Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has proposed legalizing the “modular refineries”.
“There is a way out of vio- lent agitation, but it is by creating opportunities and the environment where the people in the communities can benefit,” Osinbajo said this month.