The federal government of Nigeria is hoping to use new technology to catch oil thieves who smuggle the country’s crude in the energy rich Niger Delta region.

Nigeria produces an average 2.53 million barrels of oil per day.

The United Nations Security Council estimates that Nigeria lost $2.8 billion of revenue to oil theft in 2017.

A 2013 Chatham House report estimates that 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day -- $3 billion to $8 billion a year—is stolen by oil thieves in Nigeria. 

How is oil stolen?

According to a Reuters report on the subject, “deep in the maze of creeks in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, thieves tap pipelines and siphon the crude via rubber hoses up to 2 kilometers long, into barrels aboard small craft.

“They then sail alongside larger vessels, allowing the contraband to be pumped ship-to-ship into oil tankers bound for export, usually to Asia -- mixed imperceptibly in a ratio as small as 10 percent with the legitimate product”.

Hiring a foreign CCTV company to catch thieves

To curtail the activities of the thieves, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has turned to French data firm, Kpler, for help.

Kpler is only six years old but is staffed by a hundred mostly young employees.

Reuters reports that Kpler has been handed the job of ferreting out the smugglers from the thousands of ships sailing through Nigerian waters, by deploying video technology from its office in London. 

From Kpler's shared WeWork office space in faraway London, the head of its partnership with Nigeria, Antoine Pillet, zooms in on a lonely vessel deep in the Niger Delta's river system, by using satellite data and the firm's own software, Reuters writes. 

“Sitting above the Forcados crude pipeline and away from a crowded main shipping channel, the ship is surrounded by swamps stained black by spills and forests hollowed out in places by wildcat construction -- tell-tale signs of theft and refining".

Pillet joked that; "In some ways, we're the CCTV of what's going on in Nigerian waters. We provide the data, but don't really give opinions on what may be going on."

Kpler's platform also monitors Nigerian waters round-the-clock and logs clandestine journeys by unknown ships, and changes to ships' drafts.

Kpler is also training the DPR to interpret the algorithm it logs after detailing the movement of ships bearing oil cargoes. 

"This technology is a way of improving the way we do things. Of course there are problems here and there, but we don't have inherent problems," Paul Osu, the DPR's head of public affairs, told Reuters.

"Technology is the way to boost transparency of operations and improve investor confidence," he added. 

Oil majors are cutting operations in Nigeria

Kpler’s project with Nigeria is coming at a time when oil majors have lost patience in Nigeria's corruption-ridden system, while choosing to diversify operations offshore.

For instance, Royal Dutch Shell, the largest oil major operating onshore in Nigeria, says it is looking “to concentrate on a smaller (onshore) footprint," according to Shell's Nigeria country chair Osagie Okunbo.

Shell alone recorded 128 oil spills caused by vandals operating from the delta, in 2018. 

Shell’s 2018 oil spill number is more than double what it recorded in 2017, and its highest since 2014.

Vandals, saboteurs and gun wielding militants often patrol the delta to rupture pipelines and commence illegal modular refining operations.

The Nigerian government has unsuccessfully tried to curb the economically hemorrhaging activities of the smugglers through the years.