尼日利亞因石油盜竊損失慘重
The Nigerian state and oil companies are losing $1bn or more a month to oil theft by criminal networks whose activities have expanded rapidly under the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan.
尼日利亞石油盜竊活動猖獗，每月給國家和石油公司造成10億美元以上的損失。德勒克•喬納森(Goodluck Jonathan)擔任總統後，犯罪團伙盜竊石油的活動迅速增長。According to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the finance minister, the trade in stolen oil led to a 17 per cent fall in official oil sales in April, or about 400,000 barrels per day. At average April prices of $121 per barrel, this implied a loss of $1.2bn. This is a higher estimate than that given by SPDC, Royal Dutch Shell's Nigerian subsidiary, which put theft at between 150,000b/d and 180,000b/d.
尼日利亞財政部長恩戈齊•奧孔約-伊韋阿拉(Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala)表示，遭竊石油流入市面，導致4月官方石油銷售量下降17%，或每日減少40萬桶左右。4月平均油價爲每桶121美元，這意味着尼日利亞損失了12億美元。這一估計高於荷蘭皇家殼牌(Royal Dutch Shell)尼日利亞子公司SPDC的估計，後者認爲每日的損失在15萬桶至18萬桶之間。Ms Okonjo-Iweala said that the theft of oil–known in Nigeria as "bunkering"–along with fraud in the allocation of a - controversial fuel subsidy, might together have cost the state $14bn in 2011.
奧孔約-伊韋阿拉表示，盜竊石油活動，再加上在一項有爭議的燃料補貼分配過程中的欺詐行爲，可能導致尼日利亞政府在2011年損失140億美元。
This leaves Africa's leading oil producer with a limited cushion if oil prices continue to fall. Nigeria, Africa's second-largest economy, depends on oil for more than 75 per cent of its hard currency earnings and typically more than 90 per cent of state revenues.
因此，如果油價繼續下跌，這個非洲最大產油國的緩衝能力有限。尼日利亞是非洲第二大經濟體，該國逾75%的硬通貨收入來自石油，政府稅收中來自石油的部分通常也佔到90%以上。"We have to get very serious about the bunkering issue,"
"我們必須非常認真地對待石油盜竊問題，"Ms Okonjo-Iweala told the Financial Times. "If we can stop the amount that is stolen, we can beef up the excess crude account faster."
奧孔約-伊韋阿拉向英國《金融時報》表示："如果我們能夠阻止犯罪團伙盜竊石油，我們就可以更快地充實石油溢價收益基金賬戶(ECA)。"The trade in stolen oil now involves a sophisticated criminal network and international traders who provide oil at discounted prices to refineries in west Africa, China and India.
遭竊石油的交易目前包括一個複雜的犯罪網絡和國際交易商，後者以折扣價格向西非、中國和印度的精煉廠提供石油。Bunkering expanded rapidly when local gangs in the Niger delta took up arms in the late 1990s to try to force the federal government to give more oil revenues to the region.
上世紀90年代末，尼日爾三角洲當地黑幫動用武器試圖迫使聯邦政府給予該地區更多的石油收入，石油盜竊活動變得猖獗。
