Force majeure is a term that is slowly creeping into our national lexicon and consciousness. It is such a negative phrase that no serious country would ever carry about in a way that allows its use anywhere within its territory. This ill locution that does no country any good appears to have fallen in love with our country. At the last count, we have had four occurrences of it and there is no consolation that we won’t have another.
What is force majeure, if I may ask? See how few those who know what it means are. This is to be expected as its meaning doesn’t give a cause to cheer. Hence the natural instinct is to bury the expression alongside its meaning so that we won’t have a basis to imagine the gloom that comes with it especially on a nation’s economy and image.
Force majeure, in this context, is a legal notice that absolves an oil firm of liabilities for failure to meet supply obligations to crude oil buyers due to circumstances beyond the firm’s control. This term literally takes the blame from an oil company that gave vent to it and squarely places same on the country where such a firm is operating.
For this to happen in our country, it proves that our environment is hostile to the survival of these companies to the extent that they cannot cope anymore. It is something akin to the last resort available to the oil firms and gives an inkling of how bad the situation is. But wait for it, you shall understand presently.
The Italian oil firm ENI and SPDC fall among the four oil companies that have recently sued for force majeure. ENI, on April 1 this year, shut down its activities in the swampy oil fields of Bayelsa State over crude oil theft. It had lamented that 7000 barrels of about 40000 barrels of crude it produced from the facilities was lost to oil thieves.
Did I just hear thieves? Oil thieves for that matter! Don’t mind me, ever since I heard of a thief who stole a governor’s cell phone worth N50000 and got a jail term of 45 years, I always feel pity for thieves who go after higher things like oil because they may be risking hundred years of their lives, if not more, imprisonment. But of course, not in Nigeria! In fact, these oil thieves steal with impunity even before those who are supposed to prevent them.
Shell Petroleum Development Company too could not spare opting for force majeure on its production of Bonny Light Crude following the ubiquitous crude oil theft. This led it to effectively shut down a whopping 150000 barrels per day worth of Bonny Light Crude. All at the expense of Nigeria.
These have aggregated to take us back to the days when militancy was at its apogee in the Niger Delta. This, it has done by causing Nigeria to export the same amount of crude as it could in the height of the Niger Delta insurgency. This was confirmed by a Reuters report.
According to the international news agency, which on Tuesday quoted a shipping list it saw, Nigeria now exports 1.76 million barrels per day, the lowest since August 2009 when the Niger Delta debacle was successfully (or unsuccessfully?) resolved by the federal government.
Categorically speaking, the current figure of crude export is the lowest to be recorded by Nigeria since August 2009 when the Yar’Adua administration, by granting amnesty to the Niger Delta militants, made them pledge to stop sabotaging the nation’s oil export drive. With the situation on ground we have gone back to the aeon that caused the country so much loss in revenue before the amnesty programme came on steam.
Considering the humongous sum sunk by government into the amnesty programme and the amount it has continued to cost the government, it is adverse that crude oil theft and pipeline vandalisation is now being allowed to pooh pooh all that money and effort. It is even more bitter that we have allowed same to scorn the major legacy we can attribute to late president Umar Musa Yar’Adua.
For those involved or encouraging this ruinous act, pray, where is your love for country? Oh, permit my woolgathering that patriotism has long departed from our dictionary. Those involved would gleefully intimate you that they are only benefiting from their own share of the ‘national cake.’ And unfettered benefit they are really in for as government appears at sea on how to contain them.
What have continued to confound most Nigerians is that the current administration is reported to be paying several billions of naira to ex Niger Delta war lords to block oil theft and guard oil installations, yet the situation is deteriorating yet they haven’t been disengaged. Nigeria, we hail thee!
There is no need telling the negative impact the new figure of oil export portends for our country’s economy. Its impact will likely be felt on the national financing gap meaning that there will be drawings on reserves for augmentation. This will probably funnel into a situation where we can’t guarantee the effective implementation of the 2013 budget and subsequent ones.
Further, this low figure of oil export and the staggering quantity of oil export caused by crude oil theft is capable of denting Nigeria’s hitherto reputation as a reliable exporter with security of supply. With this image forfeited, buyers could go after other markets that promises more stability of supply.
Our plight is further fevered by the trend that sees many countries discovering oil in commercial quantity. Countries like Uganda, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire as well as Brazil and the United States have been found to have enormous reserve of crude oil. Nigeria, therefore, cannot keep handling whatever that affects its crude oil export with kid gloves.
Nonetheless, it is times like this that make plausible the call for government to encourage the diversification of the economy. Since it is becoming apparent that government can’t contain crude oil theft, let it at least encourage the stimulation of other sectors of the economy so we wouldn’t become slaves to the thieves.
Structural problems that inhibits this like power failure, absence of the needed infrastructures should be adequately addressed. Assess to funds should be made easy with institutions and the policy space improved upon to attract more private capital both from within and outside the country.
That notwithstanding, government is not excused from the responsibility of putting an end to crude oil theft. If government is not that troubled by the negative effect it has on the economy and image of our nation, it should at least be bothered by the environmental degradation it brings on its wake.
Those behind this heinous crime are no ghosts, government should thus go all out to round them up, else it risks fueling the suspicion of its complicity in the illegality. It should think out strategies that can effectively deal with the menace. With all the resources and personnel at its disposal, it is unacceptable for government to allow this to continue unless there is more to it than we already know.
Ugochukwu writes from Lokoja, you can react by sending a mail to ug.ugovester@gmail.com
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