IegaExposed: Inside the perilous world of illegal crude oil refiners
As Nigeria bleeds from the pangs of rampant theft from its oil pipelines, her crude oil production dropped to an historic low of 1.18 million barrels per day (bpd) in August, according to figures from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission. That is Nigeria’s lowest daily average output since at least 1997, according to data from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Output never fell below 1.4 million bpd even amid crippling militant attacks in the Niger Delta during 2009-10 and in 2016. Part of the stolen crude is what is refined illegally at many cooking plants in the Niger Delta. MIKe ODIEGWU delves into the world of illegal crude refining and uncovers the collusion of some security agents with the key players.
He first appeared jovial and friendly when this reporter exchanged pleasantries with him on a Monday morning. The environment was rustic; stains of petroleum products drenched the vegetation and grass in the surroundings. The road was a bit slippery, moist and embalmed with oil sleeks. The coal tar blended with the sleeks, making it brown with the air wafting a choking stench of petroleum residue.
In a thatched wooden hut sat three able-bodied men, whose rumpled trousers and stained shirts gave them away as petroleum products dealers. This reporter beckoned to one of them. He came out with a smile. But his countenance changed immediately an inquiry was made about the persons locally cooking crude oil. The man, who refused to disclose his name, raised the alarm. He immediately branded the reporter a spy on a mission to destroy their business. It was a tense atmosphere!
Before now, those who engaged in the notorious business of setting up cooking camps in the bushes and habitable areas did not hide. Not anymore. It is now a highly secretive business because of intensified campaigns against the practice and ongoing mass arrests of alleged masterminds. The operators of illegal refineries are not bothered about the life-threatening risks associated with their business exploits.
In October 2021, an illegal refinery site in Rumuekpe community, Emohua Local Government Area, Rivers State, burst into flames and burnt over 25 operators beyond recognition. In April 2022, over 100 persons were killed when a notorious illegal refinery site in Abaezi, Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area, a border community between Rivers and Imo states, went up in flames, consuming operators, buyers and workers at the site. All vehicles and motorcycles were destroyed in the midnight fire.
“Illegal bunkering is not stealing”
Cosmos Ere is a middle-aged man from Nembe in Bayelsa State. In his designer attire and healthy physique, Cosmos exudes wealth. Getting him to talk about his business as an owner and operator of illegal refineries was a thug of war. After many attempts and through a go-between, Ere spilt it all.
He did not see anything wrong in setting up camps to refine crude oil found in his backyard. For over seven years, he has made it his line of business and he understands everything about it. In the beginning, Cosmos said mastering the technology involved in the process was a bit difficult. “Nobody thought me how to do it. I got the idea from the cooking of kaikai (local dry gin). It is exactly the drum pattern. My grandfather used to cook kaikai; so I do it with him. That’s how we started. The first one we did, the production pipe started giving us issues. We witnessed incidences of fire until we corrected the production pipe and the fire issue stopped,” he said.
On how he stopped the fire, he explained thus: “From the pot, we brought out a gas pipe. In the cooking of kaikai, there is nothing like a gas pipe. So there was no gas pipe in the first pot. We found out that if the gas is not channelled somewhere, there will be an incidence of fire. So we brought out a gas pipe from the oven and the unexpected fire stopped.”
Cosmos, who looks neat and wealthy, was of the view that illegal bunkering and refining of crude oil does not amount to stealing. He insisted that engaging in such business was better than stealing and that the high cost of petroleum products in the conventional market makes his line of business profitable and irresistible. He quickly dismissed fears that products of illegal refineries are substandard. “Bunkering is good. The one we produce is better than refinery kerosene or fuel if you follow the right process. Our kerosene is pure kerosene; no chemical, no spirit is added. Even the fuel is pure fuel.
“For instance, if you buy our fuel 10 litres and bring 10 litres of refinery fuel, pour it inside the two different generators and start them together, the refinery will finish first before our fuel because of the spirit they added in the refinery fuel. The refinery fuel will finish before one hour but our fuel will last for three hours. It is just that the process is very risky and difficult.
“The fuel that the Federal Government imports is not even enough. Without “Kpofire” (as illegal refineries are called in Ijaw language), the product will not circulate adequately for everybody. There is nowhere you can get Kpofire now because they have scattered everywhere. You can see there is fuel scarcity now in Nigeria. That’s why sometimes, we have to find a way to cook and make some money instead of going to steal. At the filling station, they are selling kerosene N400 naira for one litre but we are selling 25litres for N1000 in the bush,” he said.
It is not easy to set up a camp. Cosmos said a technological procedure must be followed using unique materials before a cooking camp can be set up. He said: “There are two ways to set up a camp. It is either with a pan or a drum. Pan is very expensive but it is safer. You have the confidence that there will be no fire, just that the money is high because of the cost of materials.”
He talked about constructing an oven and assembling an “okporoko” pan, production pipe, gas pipe, receiver, waste pipe and valve before an operator can completely set up a camp. He said: “But we have two patterns of moulding: either you use a round pot or a square pot. A round pot is easier to mould than a square pot. The round pot even produces more than the square pot. Before you mould a pot at least after buying the pan, you buy electron; you buy angle iron; you buy galvanised pipe; you buy binding wire in case of any leakage; you use the binding wire to maintain it. Then the welder starts work.
“You can weld it right inside the camp or somewhere else if you have boys that will help you to carry it. They will just roll it into the camp and set it for you. To set it is very simple. Where the head that is where you put the okporoko will be higher than the downside where you have the waste pipe.
After cooking the pot, the remaining is the waste. You can still use that waste to cook engine oil. That waste is not waste. You can cook that waste on its own for diesel again. You cannot cook it in the same pot. You put it somewhere else,” he explained.
Read Also; Oil theft: NSCDC destroys 71 illegal refineries, arrests 501 suspected vandals in eight monthsHow products are differentiated
Cosmos further gives insight into the system adopted by illegal refiners during the construction of the camp to avert fire. During the cooking, various signs are used to differentiate the end products. “After setting the pot, the production pipe will take you the distance of let’s say 15 pipes to avoid fire. The gas pipe will somehow be four metres away from the Okporoko, which is the cooling system while the pot connects the okporoko to the pipe. From the pot to the okporoko, from the okporoko to the receiver where the end product will go. After loading the pot, when they are cooking it, the product will come out from the pot to the okporoko. That’s where you put water continuously with a pumping machine and it will pump till you put out the fire.
“When you put out the fire after ten minutes, you will see small smoke from the gas pipe. Before the pot will start boiling, fuel will come out. The more the pot is boiling, the more fuel will be pouring out. To make the fuel to be very strong and active, you won’t put much fire on the pot. When the fuel is about to finish, you will notice little white smoke coming out from the gas pipe. When the white smoke stops, kerosene will start coming out. When the kerosene is about to finish, you will notice another serious smoke will start coming out.
“It shows the kerosene is about to finish, then diesel will start coming out. If you have three receivers- one for fuel, one for kerosene, and one for diesel, you just have to be switching the valves to receive each product. You switch off the ones for kerosene and diesel, switch on the ones for fuel and that also goes for kerosene and diesel. When the diesel is about to finish, you start to smell the finishing odour. If you don’t know, it will make you sneeze. At this stage, the cooker will start reducing the fire little by little and the production will be slow. You don’t need much fire again to get the normal production and quantity.”
Illegal refiners measure the quantity and the quality of their products using the type of crude sold to them. Cosmos explained that there are two crude types. He said: “One produces more kerosene than diesel while the other crude produces more diesel than kerosene. Like the carton crude, this light crude oil produces more fuel and kerosene than diesel. Some pots will produce 60 drums. Only fuel will give you five drums while the same pot will give you like 40 to 45 drums of kerosene; then diesel will give you like about 12 drums. For the oil crude, which is lighter than carton crude, it will give you less kerosene. Where you expect maybe like 40 drums, it will give 25 drums of kerosene and the rest will go for diesel.”
Extra measures, discipline needed to avert fire
Illegal refiners adopt extra measures to avert fire at their camps. Cosmos believes that fire at camps is a product of carelessness. He says: “In the process of cooking, immediately fuel starts coming, everything you use there is rubber bucket. Anything metal, including a phone or even wrist watch, is not allowed. It can cause a fire. Everybody in the camp will wear a rain boot.
“So, the issue of an accident is based on your carelessness because if you avoid anything iron especially as soon as the cooker starts cooking and fuel starts to come out, everything you want to use there will be rubber bucket even if the handle is iron, you remove it and put rope. If your gas pipe is not too long, like for us, we don’t put the pipe close to the oven, you put the gas pipe in-between, let’s say you are putting 12 pipes, we put the gas pipe in the middle after the first six pipes; then gas will not go to the front and the back. Gas will go on its own.
“But if you put the gas pipe like the old pattern, close to the oven, at the time diesel starts to come out, if the weather is calm, the gas will come down and it moves very fast on the ground. So we use detergent water to pour everywhere on the ground to curtail the gas. The major thing that causes fire is gas. I have not experienced any fire. I worked under somebody. I served the person, welded pots for him and cooked for about eight to nine years without an accident and since I started working on my own, I have not had any accident.”
How they cope amid a hunt for them, he said: “We do not manoeuvre security agents; we settle them.” Cosmos confirmed that security agents protect their operations by notifying them of impending raids. He explained: “There is no need to manoeuvre police and military officers; we only settle them. It is chop, I chop. The security agents even need it more than us. It is even the military officers that will tell you when to put fire. No police or army comes there at night; they only come in the morning. They are the ones to tell you this time you put the fire, this time you put out the fire so that other agents will not interfere as far as you are giving them their right. No army working around you will come and disturb you unless it is an order that comes from above to scatter everything.”
To keep the business afloat, there are middlemen who buy the product from illegal refiners and take them to retailers or storage facilities in the city. Cosmos said anybody can buy from them, including security agencies. He said merchants from the North are their main customers. He said: “The main people that buy these products are the Hausas, the Alhajis. They are the main dealers. They are the ones doing this business because they are the ones that will bring tankers, buy and take them to the North. They buy the products in large quantities. They buy in trucks.
“They are the ones that even help sometimes to finance us to build the pot and set up a camp. They need it more than anything. They will even give you money to find a way to source the product. Some government officials will help us clear the road for the product to pass. Most of our customers are military officers,” he said.
However, the Defence Headquarters had dismissed allegations that some military personnel and security agencies were involved in oil theft and illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta region. Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen. Jimmy Akpor, said the allegations were unfounded
How we get crude oil
Without crude oil, there would not be illegal refineries. Cosmos said there are people whose job is to either burst pipelines or tap them to get crude oil to feed illegal refineries. “Sometimes, the cooker of the pot is not the owner of the crude,” he said, adding: “The people that have the crude are different from the people that have the pot. Our own is just the pot. The people that supply the crude are different. Our own is just to cook.
“I have never gone to burst pipeline to get crude. Sometimes, we are just informed that somebody has a supply point. I would go and put my pot and the person will supply me. They are inside the bush maybe close to an oil pipeline. Sometimes, you might want to buy and they will tell you there is no pressure or they don’t have any crude. If the pressure comes, they will just call us, load our pot and we pay. Then you cook, anything that comes out is your gain.
“If where we are cooking is close to where their vessel is, sometimes we use a small wooden boat to buy. It’s either we buy from the upland or inside the rivers. So if your pot is in the upland, the process of selling the crude is different from the process of selling in the sea. People rush for the upland because the process is easier, but inside the river, the expenses are much. There is nobody that does the business in the river that will not involve Alhaji. At least, you will spend nothing less than N4 to N5million. They will use a pumping machine to transfer the crude from their vessel to another point. Everything about Kpofire is a pumping machine.”
‘Legalise illegal refineries’
Cosmos urged the Federal Government to legalise the ownership and operations of illegal refineries. He believes doing so will provide jobs for unemployed youths and make petroleum products readily available at reduced prices. He says: “They can look at the size of our pot and impose tax or license fee. There is no machine anywhere that cannot use our kerosene, diesel and petrol. Even major construction companies use it.
“Not less than six persons work in a camp with the smallest pot. In my camp, I have 11 plates and I am paying eight people. Two persons are cooks and two persons inspect the production. In the morning, one person will stand there to sell and another person will be acting as the secretary; that is six persons. Two persons only specialise in pumping machine operation. Everybody has their work.
“When it’s daybreak, the cooks will go and sleep till 7 pm. The people inspecting the production will also go and sleep. The people in charge of the pumping machine and the sellers will stay during the day to cool the product and sell it. Then in the evening, they will go and sleep and the cooks will take over. In each department, you have at least two people. If it is a big camp, some people are employing four people in each department. Two persons will work from 7 pm to 12a.m., they will go and sleep while the other two take over.
“The number of departments depends on the size of your pot. Had the government legalised the cooking process and allowed people to register, by now we would have improved on the technology. We are supposed to have made it a standard modular refinery. If they are not scattering these things, we would have improved on the technology through innovation because the more you do something, the more you improve on it.
“You employ more people and also produce more quantity; you put more money and gain more experience. Because of the destruction, nobody is bringing up new ideas to create new technology. We still operate the old pattern. We wouldn’t be bringing out only fuel, diesel and kerosene, other things would be involved. We talk about the waste, that waste is another thing; by now we are supposed to be bringing engine oil, other materials used for road construction, many things.”-The Nation
To be continued
