The Nigerian government has deployed the army to destroy clandestine refineries in the south of the country and try to stop the looting of oil resources.
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An explosion at an oil smuggling site has killed at least 110 people in southern Nigeria, a region already devastated by decades of illegal oil exploitation.
The blast, which occurred on the evening of April 22, 2022, hit two fuel storage areas where more than 100 people were working clandestinely, Imo state officials said. Two people, including the owner of “the illegal refinery”, are sought.
Residents of local communities also siphon crude from pipelines owned by major oil companies which they then refine at illegal sites and resell on the black market. Such human tragedies occur regularly in Africa’s most populous country, where oil theft and illegal connection to pipelines are criminal activities that have become commonplace. Nigeria’s worst pipeline explosion occurred in October 1998 in the southern town of Jesse, killing more than 1,000 residents.
The authorities and the army have decided to intensify their actions “to minimize crimes along oil production lines”said Horatius Egua, a senior oil ministry official. No less than 30 illegal oil refineries have already been dismantled in the Niger Delta region in recent weeks, according to the Nigerian Ministry of Defence.
As Africa’s leading oil producer, Nigeria exports an average of two million barrels of crude per day, which represents 90% of the country’s export revenues.
But in the Niger Delta region, armed groups regularly blow up pipelines and kidnap oil company workers. This leads to very significant losses. According to official sources, the country loses around 200,000 barrels of crude every day due to vandalism and oil theft.
Despite the country’s immense wealth in hydrocarbons, most of the inhabitants live in great poverty and regularly accuse the big oil companies of having also contributed to the pollution of their region without participating in its development. Decades of oil spills have devastated mangroves and entire villages, where fishing and agriculture were once the main source of local income.