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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
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Results for oil industry
10 results foundAuthor: Bradshaw, Elizabeth A. Title: Deepwater, Deep Ties, Deep Trouble: A State- Corporate Environmental Crime Analysis of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Summary: The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was one of the worst environmental disasters of all time. Using the concept of state-corporate environmental crime, this project applies a case study analysis of secondary data sources including publicly available government reports, corporate documents, academic sources and journalistic accounts to examine the causes of the blowout and the response to the spill. Building on Michalowski and Kramer’s Integrated Theoretical Model of State-Corporate Crime, this study introduces an additional level of analysis- that of the industry- between the organizational and institutional levels. The causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion are rooted both in the history of federal development of the offshore oil industry, and the organizational actions of the corporations most directly involved: BP, Transocean and Halliburton. Undertaken in close coordination between the federal government and BP, alongside privately contracted oil spill response organizations, the response to the spill can be classified as a state-facilitated corporate cover up of the environmental crimes in the Gulf. This was accomplished through scientific propaganda and censorship of images and information. Working together, BP and the Obama administration sought to downplay the size of the spill and its effects. An unprecedented amount of toxic chemical dispersants were applied at the surface and directly at the wellhead in an effort to conceal the amount of oil. Federal restrictions blocked access to cleanup operations, beaches and airspace, thereby limiting public visibility of the spill. Policing the media blackout was an intricate matrix of federal and local law enforcement, and private security companies hired by BP. Suppression of images and information helped to contain public outrage while allowing BP and the federal government to carry out dangerous response measures with little oversight. As this study demonstrates, the most recent spill is not an isolated instance of state-corporate environmental crime, but rather is the result of the criminogenic structure of the deepwater oil industry. Details: Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 2012. 274p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed February 14, 2013 at: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=dissertations Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=dissertations Shelf Number: 127613 Keywords: Corporate Crime (U.S.)Offenses Against the EnvironmentOil IndustryOil Spills |
Author: Lee-Ashley, Matt Title: Oil and Gas Industry Investments in the National Rifle Association and Safari Club International. Reshaping American Energy, Land, and Wildlife Policy Summary: Two bedrock principles have guided the work and advocacy of American sportsmen for more than a century. First, under the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, wildlife in the United States is considered a public good to be conserved for everyone and accessible to everyone, not a commodity that can be bought and owned by the highest bidder. Second, since President Theodore Roosevelt's creation of the first wildlife refuges and national forests, sportsmen have fought to protect wildlife habitat from development and fragmentation to ensure healthy game supplies. These two principles, however, are coming under growing fire from an aggressive and coordinated campaign funded by the oil and gas industry. As part of a major effort since 2008 to bolster its lobbying and political power, the oil and gas industry has steadily expanded its contributions and influence over several major conservative sportsmen's organizations, including Safari Club International, or SCI, the National Rifle Association, or NRA, and the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation. The first two organizations have assumed an increasingly active and vocal role in advancing energy industry priorities, even when those positions are in apparent conflict with the interests of hunters and anglers who are their rank-and-file members. The third group, the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, or CSF, is also heavily funded by oil and gas interests and plays a key role in providing energy companies, SCI, the NRA, gun manufacturers, and other corporate sponsors with direct access to members of Congress. The growing influence of the oil and gas industry on these powerful groups is reshaping the politics, policies, and priorities of American land and wildlife conservation. In this report, we identify three high-profile debates in which the growing influence of the oil and gas industry in SCI, CSF, the NRA and other conservative sportsmen groups could play a decisive role in achieving outcomes that are beneficial to energy companies at the expense of habitat protection, science-based management, and hunter and angler access to wildlife and public lands. These areas to watch are: - Endangered and threatened wildlife in oil- and gas-producing regions: The case of the greater sage grouse and the lesser prairie chicken - The backcountry: How the oil and gas industry and its allies are working to undo protections of roadless areas and wilderness study areas - Public access and ownership: The movement to privatize public lands and wildlife The oil and gas industry's growing investment in conservative sportsmen groups is already yielding ever-greater influence over legislation and policy decisions that benefit the industry's financial interests at the expense of hunters and anglers. Understanding and tracking this powerful lobbying alliance is of increasing importance to those who believe that American sportsmen can and should continue to be the standard-bearers for our nation's conservation tradition defend the principles that have guided North American land and wildlife stewardship for more than a century. Details: Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2014. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 4, 2015 at: https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/IndustryInfluenceReport.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/IndustryInfluenceReport.pdf Shelf Number: 135503 Keywords: National Rifle AssociationNatural ResourcesOil IndustryWildlife ConservationWildlife Crime (U.S.) |
Author: Haahr, Kathryn Title: Addressing the Concerns of the Oil Industry: Security Challenges in Northeastern Mexico and Government Responses Summary: This case study analyzes the Mexican Government's response to recent threats to and attacks against energy infrastructure and personnel in Tamaulipas and Veracruz. The government is addressing the issue of cartel-induced violence in Tamaulipas and Veracruz by mobilizing security frameworks for newly established and existing state law enforcement entities and the Military. The security arrangements, that include policing of major ports and protecting Pemex facilities and operations, should help the oil and gas industry to better absorb the financial risks to its business operations. Details: Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2015. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 4, 2015 at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Addressing%20the%20Concerns%20of%20the%20Oil%20Industry_0.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Addressing%20the%20Concerns%20of%20the%20Oil%20Industry_0.pdf Shelf Number: 136309 Keywords: Drug CartelsDrug-Related ViolenceInfrastructure SecurityOil IndustryOrganized CrimeTerrorism |
Author: International Crisis Group Title: Curbing Violence in Nigeria (III): Revisiting the Niger Delta Summary: Violence in the Niger Delta may soon increase unless the Nigerian government acts quickly and decisively to address long-simmering grievances. With the costly Presidential Amnesty Program for ex-insurgents due to end in a few months, there are increasingly bitter complaints in the region that chronic poverty and catastrophic oil pollution, which fuelled the earlier rebellion, remain largely unaddressed. Since Goodluck Jonathan, the first president from the Delta, lost re-election in March, some activists have resumed agitation for greater resource control and self-determination, and a number of ex-militant leaders are threatening to resume fighting ("return to the creeks"). While the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East is the paramount security challenge, President Muhammadu Buhari rightly identifies the Delta as a priority. He needs to act firmly but carefully to wind down the amnesty program gradually, revamp development and environmental programs, facilitate passage of the long-stalled Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and improve security and rule of law across the region. The Technical Committee on the Niger Delta, a special body mandated in 2008 to advance solutions to the region's multiple problems, proposed the amnesty program, whose implementation since 2009, coupled with concessions to former militant leaders, brought a semblance of peace and enabled oil production to regain pre-insurgency levels. However, the government has largely failed to carry out other recommendations that addressed the insurgency's root causes, including inadequate infrastructure, environmental pollution, local demands for a bigger share of oil revenues, widespread poverty and youth unemployment. Two agencies established to drive development, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs (MNDA), have floundered. Two others mandated to restore the oil-polluted environment (particularly in Ogoni Land) and curb or manage hundreds of oil spills yearly, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP) and the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), have been largely ineffective. The PIB, intended to improve oil and gas industry governance and possibly also create special funds for communities in petroleum-producing areas, has been stuck in the National Assembly (federal parliament) since 2009. In sum, seven years after the technical committee's report, the conditions that sparked the insurgency could easily trigger a new phase of violent conflict. The outcome of the presidential election has also heightened tensions. While most people in the region acknowledge that Jonathan lost, some former militant leaders and groups accept Buhari only conditionally. For instance, the Niger Delta People's Salvation Front (NDPSF), the civil successor to the militant Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF), claims Jonathan's ouster was the product of a conspiracy by northerners and the Yoruba from the South West against the Delta peoples and the South East. Apparently influenced by that view, some groups are resuming old demands, hardly heard during the Jonathan presidency, for regional autonomy or "self-determination". Local tensions generated by the polls also pose risks, particularly in Rivers state, where Governor Nyesom Wike (of ex-President Jonathan's People's Democratic Party, PDP) and ex-Governor Rotimi Amaechi (of President Buhari's All Progressives Congress, APC) are bitter foes. With many guns in unauthorised hands, politically motivated assassinations and kidnappings for ransom, already common, could increase. Policy and institutional changes are necessary but, if not prepared and implemented inclusively and transparently, could themselves trigger conflict. Buhari has declared that the amnesty program, which costs over $500 million per year, is due to end in December. He has terminated petroleum pipeline protection contracts that Jonathan awarded to companies owned by ex-militant leaders and the Yoruba ethnic militia, O'odua People's Congress (OPC), and may streamline the Delta's inefficient development-intervention agencies. He may also withdraw the PIB from parliament for revision. Some of this is desirable, even inevitable, but a number of former militant leaders and other entrenched interests threaten resistance and a possible return to violence. A perception that the government's actions are reversing the Delta's gains could aggravate local grievances and precipitate armed violence. At its peak in 2009, the insurgency in the Niger Delta was claiming an estimated 1,000 lives a year, had cut Nigeria's oil output by over 50 per cent and was costing the government close to four billion naira (nearly $19 million) per day in counter-insurgency operations. A resurgence of violence and increased oil-related crime in the Delta could seriously undermine national security and economic stability, which is already weighed down by the Boko Haram insurgency and dwindling oil revenues. Details: Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2015. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: Africa Report No. 231: Accessed September 30, 2015 at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/west-africa/nigeria/231-curbing-violence-in-nigeria-iii-re-visiting-the-niger-delta.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Nigeria URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/west-africa/nigeria/231-curbing-violence-in-nigeria-iii-re-visiting-the-niger-delta.pdf Shelf Number: 136897 Keywords: Boko HaramHuman Rights Oil IndustryPolitical Corruption PollutioniViolence Violent Crimes |
Author: Emordi, Kingsley Emeka Title: Victims, villains or heroes? : the local community perception of oil bunkering in the Niger delta Summary: Grounded on a political ecology approach, this study sheds light on oil bunkering activity that is done by local militants in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Such oil bunkering is used as a euphemism for oil theft in Nigeria. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the perception of oil bunkering that is done by groups (militants) of the local communities of the Niger Delta. By collecting and comparing the narratives of the three actors linked to so-called illegal oil bunkering. The three actors are the locals of the Niger Delta, the Nigerian government and the multinational oil companies (MNOCs). Such Oil bunkering that is done by the local militants of the Niger Delta has dominated the local politics since the 1990s. Through narrative analysis I have identified three different stories from the three different actors. The government and the Multinational oil companies (MNOCs) operating in the Niger Delta perceives, such oil bunkering is seen as illegal activity that affects the nation's economy, as well as causing environmental degradation in the Niger Delta. However, oil have contributed enormously to the national economy since the inception of oil exploration in the Niger Delta. To many people, such as the government agencies and its allies, these growth have brought income opportunities and growth to the local communities of the Niger Delta. In contrast to the inhabitants of the Niger Delta such economic growth is yet to translate to economic development, and an appreciable increase in the standard of living. Despite being the goose that lays the golden egg. This is coupled with certain fundamental issues such as continuous neglect by state, political marginalization and the failure of state interventionist efforts at ameliorating the suffering of the inhabitants of the region. The consequence of this is reinforcing the option of resistance and violence, as against peaceful engagement with the state. This is manifested in the increasing violence and lawlessness epitomized by the incidence of kidnapping of oil workers, seizure of MNOCs oil facilities, destruction of oil installations, as well as oil bunkering which is the focus of this study. By using narrative analysis, I found that the local communities sees oil bunkering as an integral part of their protest against the state and the multinational companies operating in the Niger Delta. This is an approach within political ecology, and narrative analysis offers a way of obtaining a rich understanding of the main ways that locals of the Niger Delta experience and perceives oil bunkering. As well as the state and MNOCs approach towards the locals, by means of their presentations of relevant narratives. By doing this I also aim at contributing trend of political ecology to the Niger Delta region. The local communities of the Niger Delta have been 11 embroiled in resistance against the federal government and the multinational oil companies (MNOCs). Multilayered issues such as lack of control, participation, revenue allocation, resources control and more, institute the main grievances against the oil companies and the government. Cognizant of these issues, the state and MNOCs have not applied a more holistic approach, for this reason the local communities in the Niger Delta lost confidence in both the state and MNOCs. Hence these led to the issues the Niger Delta is facing today. Such Oil bunkering activities done by the local militants of the Niger Delta is a classic example of the perceived struggle and resistance of the Niger Delta militants over control of the natural resources in their region. The local's militants are indigenes of the Niger Delta, they represent the resistance group and they are the main figure in oil bunkering. This study carried a more in-depth analysis of the local communities' narratives on oil bunkering than other stakeholder's narratives. However, this study also presented extensive position of other actors narratives linked to oil bunkering in the Niger Delta. My reason for doing this is that, as a researcher for this study I find the local communities of the Niger Delta to constitute the most challenging task to understand. The locals are more challenging to understand, because my main interest is to understand the local's community's perceptions. Therefore deeper focus on these, whilst to understand the context of other narratives are pertinent to identify the narrative landscape to compare and contrast. This study further argues that oil bunkering activities in the Niger Delta emerged due to grievances by the people of the Niger Delta, which is attributed to the failure of the state and the multinational oil companies (MNOCs) to comply with the demands of the local community of the Niger Delta. This thesis further shows that, the current oil bunkering activities in Niger Delta have become a mixture of genuine grievance and greed as well as opportunism. Details: As, Norway: Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 2015. 105p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed September 3, 2016 at: https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/handle/11250/293819 Year: 2015 Country: Nigeria URL: https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/handle/11250/293819 Shelf Number: 140143 Keywords: Offenses Against the EnvironmentOil IndustryOil TheftTheft of Natural Resources |
Author: Van Riper, Stephen K. Title: Tackling Africa's First Narco-State: Guinea-Bissau in West Africa Summary: The U.S., Europe and regional African players must tackle drug smuggling in West Africa to prevent that region from falling into chaos. Today, West Africa is a significant nexus for the illegal trafficking of oil, weapons, cigarettes, drugs and other commodities. The United States has labeled Guinea-Bissau Africa's first narco-state and it has become the epicenter of a region where Transnational Criminal Organizations are corrupting governments and societies at an alarming rate. Their nefarious efforts, and Guinea-Bissau's state failure, conflict with U.S. stated interests. Tackling corruption, neutralizing spoilers, and increasing the societies' culture of lawfulness are necessary steps to save West Africa. This will be challenging in Guinea-Bissau due to geography, culture, government structure, and a corrupted military. But with the right adjustments to resources, authorities and priorities, it can be done. Details: Carlisle Barracks, PA: United States Army War College Press, 2014. 47p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 26, 2016 at: http://pksoi.army.mil/default/assets/File/VanRiper_monograph_Final.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Guinea-Bissau URL: http://pksoi.army.mil/default/assets/File/VanRiper_monograph_Final.pdf Shelf Number: 146013 Keywords: Drug TraffickingOil IndustryOrganized CrimeSmugglingTrafficking of Goods |
Author: Ralby, Ian M. Title: Downstream Oil Theft: Global Modalities, Trends, and Remedies Summary: At peak prices, tapping a Mexican pipeline of refined oil for only seven minutes could earn a cartel $90,000. In 2012 alone, hydrocarbons fraud cost the European Union €4 billion in lost revenues. In Nigeria, 30 percent of all hydrocarbons products are smuggled into neighboring states. An estimated 660,000 cars in Morocco and Tunisia run all year long on fuel smuggled from Algeria. In its first year, a fuel marking and vehicle tracking program in Uganda reduced the amount of adulterated fuel from 29 percent to as little as 1 percent. But at the same time, the regulators who test the state’s fuel marking program routinely steal 22 liters per truckload, amounting to 1.2 million liters per year at one border crossing alone. Theft, fraud, smuggling, laundering, corruption. Hydrocarbons crime, in all its forms, has become a significant threat not only to local and regional prosperity but also to global stability and security. Combating this pervasive criminal activity is made only more difficult by the reality that many of those in a position to curb hydrocarbons crime are the ones benefiting from it. This is the first major study of refined oil theft around the globe, and while Part I provides only a limited snapshot of the problem, it offers useful insight into the modalities of theft, the culprits responsible, the stakeholders who suffer, and the approaches that could change the illicit dynamics. Part I examines the contours of illicit hydrocarbons activity in ten case studies: Mexico, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Uganda, Mozambique, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the European Union (including the United Kingdom). The modalities of theft across these geographically and contextually disparate cases range from low-level tapping, siphoning, adulteration, and smuggling to extremely sophisticated maritime operations involving extensive networks of actors to brazenly corrupt dynamics in which states lose billions of dollars per year while their officials profit from those losses. Illicit activity is highest in states where oil is refined, but the most common determinant of oil theft is a significant price discrepancy between one state and its neighbor. Other factors in neighboring states— instability, currency imbalances, and lack of border controls—also impact the extent to which a state experiences downstream illicit activity. Areas where there are few fuel distribution centers are particularly ripe for organized criminal groups to fill the void. At the same time, security forces, regulatory authorities, company insiders, terminal workers, and officials at every level are all potential participants in illicit hydrocarbons schemes that rob governments of revenue and enrich the individuals involved. Some mitigation efforts—most notably fuel marking and vehicle tracking—have proved extremely useful in efforts to stem illicit activity and regain lost tax revenue. But others, including closing borders, have had little, if any, effect. This report is divided into three parts. The first focuses on the culprits, modalities, and amounts of downstream illicit hydrocarbons activity. It details each of the case studies and examines the forms of hydrocarbons crime, highlighting who benefits, who suffers, and, to the extent possible, how much is being lost by governments in the process. Part II draws on the details of the case studies to analyze trends in the global illicit market. Part III then focuses on the various stakeholders and their reasons and opportunities for mitigation, and provides concrete recommendations about what might be done. Fuel is vital to human life, and everyone wants a discount. Across the globe, people are willing to break the law in order to pursue that discount. The global scourge of illicit downstream hydrocarbons activity remains relatively invisible. This study, in shining a light on it, constitutes the first step toward effectively addressing this pervasive, yet unrecognized threat to global security, stability, and prosperity. Details: Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, Global Energy Center, 2017. 116p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 25, 2017 at: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Downstream_Oil_Theft_web_0106.pdf Year: 2017 Country: International URL: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Downstream_Oil_Theft_web_0106.pdf Shelf Number: 147797 Keywords: Natural ResourcesOil IndustryOil TheftOrganized CrimeTerrorist Financing |
Author: Courson, Elias Title: Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND): Political Marginalization, Repression and Petro-Insurgency in the Niger Delta Summary: This Discussion Paper explores the emergence of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) in the context of a full-blown insurgency linked to local resistance and violence in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta. By focusing on MEND, an armed group that has been largely responsible for the escalation of the struggle by the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta into an armed phase since late 2005, the author draws attention to the roots, causes and complex dynamics underpinning the violent conflict and insecurity in the region. This study is both timely and important as it focuses on a festering local conflict that is of great significance to political stability in Nigeria's multi-ethnic federation, as well as to global energy security considering the high stakes involved as the region hosts Africa's most productive oil fields. The importance of this study lies in the ways it interrogates some of the existing perspectives to armed conflict in resource-rich contexts by providing a systematic analysis of the roots and drivers of violence in the Niger Delta. By examining the complex connections between the political economy of oil and the ways it has fed into the politics of dispossession, the history of ethnic minority agitation, resource control, and the vicious cycle of repression and insurgency, the author provides a good case study of the oil-conflict nexus in Nigeria. It also introduces some interesting perspectives to the linkages at the local-national-global levels in the conflict in the region. Although active in the Niger Delta the impact of MEND's attacks has been felt both nationally and globally. Attacks by MEND and other armed groups have led to the loss of a quarter of Nigeria's daily oil exports since 2006. This has adversely affected the revenue base of the Nigerian government, the profit margins of international oil companies operating in the region, and disrupted global oil supplies, contributing to rising prices in the volatile oil markets. Located in West Africa's oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, the Niger Delta is strategic to the energy security calculations of the world's established and emerging powers: the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and India. For this reason, the crisis in the Niger Delta has attracted a lot of international attention and concern underscoring both the high stakes involved and the importance of ending the conflict and building sustainable peace in the region. MEND's propaganda machinery has also been active at the national and global levels in seeking attention for its local course. By focusing on MEND, this study casts more light on its origins, methods, strategies and objectives. It also nuances some of the more complex aspects of the conflicts in the oil-rich region, providing to some extent a basis for understanding some of the contradictions and ambivalence within MEND itself, and other actors, local and international involved in the conflict. Beyond this, it provides a sound basis for grappling with the challenge of resolving the complex conflict, starting with a review of some of the more recent efforts of various Nigerian governments, and calling attention to the need to tackle the problem from its roots. The analysis and material contained in this Discussion Paper should be of interest to scholars of conflict and peace in Africa, strategic and energy analysts, as well as policy makers working in the fields of democracy and development on the continent. Details: Uppsala: Nordiska AfrikainstitutetT, 2009. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Discussion paper 47: Accessed June 22, 2017 at: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/112097/47.pdf Year: 2009 Country: Africa URL: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/112097/47.pdf Shelf Number: 146340 Keywords: Natural ResourcesOil IndustryOil-Conflict NexusPetroleum IndustryResource CurseViolence |
Author: Stakeholder Democracy Network Title: Building Bridges: Community-Based Approaches to Tackle Pipeline Vandalism Summary: Pipeline vandalism cost the Nigerian Government, oil-companies and communities an estimated $14bn dollars in 2014. The failure of the Nigerian state to provide basic public services and security in the Niger Delta has resulted in a significant breakdown of the social contract. In the void that remains, international and national oil companies are often seen as a Government proxy, spending millions of dollars in their operating locations through various formal and informal Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and security instruments. However, these efforts are not perceived to have the communities' interests at heart, preferring to secure a short-term license to operate as opposed to a long-term legacy in the region. In addition, the "quick and easy cash" approach by oil-companies in response to threats by vandals has created an implicit incentive to "crack pipes", earn money and survive. In communities, the feeling of anger and demand for attention motivates vandals to interrupt pipelines at the expense of their environment and livelihoods, with many addicted to easy money from surveillance and clean-up contracts. Others vandalise to survive in the absence of other employment choices ignoring the long-term impact to their local environment and health. The environmental impact is immense with an estimated 51,500 hectares devastated by oil spills in 2014 as a direct consequence of pipeline vandalism. In the creeks, enormous sums of money are earned from the illicit trade of stolen oil, often settled through cash and arms deals, fuelling a "cold-war" between entrenched actors and the State. This threatens the fragile and purchased peace currently holding together the Niger Delta. As previous patronage networks strain after elections, and the means to gain access to oil-proceeds are mitigated, old militant tactics of pipeline vandalism, kidnap and organised crime may again emerge to illicit a response from Government and oil-companies. The communities that surround Nigeria's pipeline infrastructure will continue to demand for socio-economic development of the region and based on history, there has been no quicker way to get the Government and oil companies attention than by vandalising pipelines and halting production. The new Administration has a short window of opportunity to address these issues once and for all, riding on post-election feelings of optimism and hope washing across the Delta; perhaps one of the first times there has been marginal support for a President not from the region. However, should the new Administration not act quickly, rising agitation and reduced patronage flows may inflame feelings of anger, resentment and hopelessness, with various individuals and groups, heavily armed and very wealthy, threatening the security of the oil industry and national income. Our investigation confirmed that International Oil Company (IOC) pipelines have more incidences of vandalism than their National Oil Company (NOC) counterparts. This is due in part because IOC's still own the majority of pipeline infrastructure, but also due to historically high community expectations as a result of enormous budget allocations and the availability of formal and informal channels of "easy-money" into host communities for CSR related activities, clean up and surveillance contracts. Our research has identified examples of alternative community based models to tackle pipeline vandalism that have been trialled with some success giving a degree of confidence that change is possible and relationships can be fixed. A solution will need to take into account the successes, challenges and lessons learnt from current approaches to provide a clear direction towards a sustainable and collaborative approach to tackle the issue. This report encourages the incoming government to consider alternatives away from a sole-security response to pipeline vandalism. There is a need to review and reset the relationships between Government, oil-companies and communities as a first step to tackle pipeline vandalism, maintaining oil production whilst reinforcing peace in the Niger Delta. We believe efforts to reset relationships could lead to new social contract in the Niger Delta. A sustainable approach to tackle pipeline vandalism will develop local institutions and economies, increase employment and lift many out of poverty whilst reversing current incentives away from vandalism and towards pipeline and environmental protection. The relationship between communities, oil companies and Government has been broken for too long. Now is the time to fix it. Details: London: SDN, 2015. 44p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 3, 2017 at: http://www.stakeholderdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SDN-Building-Bridges-Community-Based-Approaches-to-Tackle-Pipeline-Vandalism.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Nigeria URL: http://www.stakeholderdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SDN-Building-Bridges-Community-Based-Approaches-to-Tackle-Pipeline-Vandalism.pdf Shelf Number: 146500 Keywords: Illicit TradeOffenses Against the EnvironmentOil IndustryPetroleum IndustryPipeline VandalismTheftVandalism |
Author: Global Witness Title: Catch me if you can: Exxon's complicity in Liberian oil sector corruption and how its Washington lobbyists fight to keep oil deals secret Summary: This is a story of bribery, suspected secret shareholders, and an audacious attempt by oil giant Exxon to bypass US anti-corruption laws. It is a story of how the American company - headed by Rex Tillerson - appears to have turned a blind eye to earlier corruption when buying an oil license in the impoverished West African country of Liberia. Finally, this is a story of how the US can help end corruption by requiring that oil companies report in detail what they pay to governments. Our key findings include evidence that Exxon: Knew its purchase might enrich former Liberian politicians who were likely behind the block Structured the deal in a way it hoped would bypass US anti-corruption laws Knew Liberia's corrupt oil agency had previously bribed officials to approve oil deals, including the very block it wanted to buy But this isn't just a story about Exxon and Liberia. It's also about how Exxon - along with others in the oil industry - has repeatedly attacked the US anti-corruption and oil transparency law that makes it possible for us to uncover deals done in this notoriously corrupt and opaque oil and gas sector. Details: London: Global Witness, 2018. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 29, 2018 at: Accessed March 29, 2018 at: https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/oil-gas-and-mining/catch-me-if-you-can-exxon-complicit-corrupt-liberian-oil-sector/ Year: 2018 Country: Liberia URL: Shelf Number: 149606 Keywords: BriberyCorruptionOil IndustryWhite Collar Crime |