Nigerian military says razed 500 illicit oil refineries

Is the strategy to put the little local Mom and Pop refineries out of business but continue bunkering by the international illicit cartels?  Illicit refined petroleum product is often the only fuel available in the Niger Delta because NNPC is unable/unwilling to distribute into the creeks and isolated areas.  A plan to tackle the cartels would be far more impressive… and honest.

AFP

6 March 2011

Nigerian military says razed 500 illicit oil refineries

YENAGOA, Nigeria — Nigeria's military said it destroyed 500 illicit oil refineries dotted along the creeks of the southern Niger Delta in a six-hour weekend raid.

Around 100 troops backed by gunboats and helicopters flattened the makeshift refineries in the Mbiama area located in a key oil-producing state of Bayelsa, a spokesman said.

"There were over 500 illegal refineries within the area the size of eight football [soccer-sized] fields," Timothy Antigha said in a phone interview on Sunday.

The military cordoned off the area and set it ablaze. No casualties were reported and no arrests made in what Antigha said was one of the largest raid ever conducted in Bayelsa state.

"I believe we destroyed several hundreds of thousands of litres of petroleum products," he said.

The "exercise is going to continue as often as possible, so that they would not have freedom of action to continue these illegal activities," said Jarafu Ibrahim, commander of the battalion that razed the refineries, many of which are not more than 40-square-metres each.

Oil theft, known locally as "bunkering" has been responsible for the majority of oil spills in Nigeria, according to reports.