Inside Look at Illegal Nigerian Oil Refinery (vid)

An inside view of the dirty mess illegal oil refineries make in Nigerian land...Personally this makes me a little uneasy knowing the stuff I buy from a petrol station could have potentially came from one of these.
Stealing crude oil from the ground...is that an act of desperation? or greed?

The Nigerian authorities say they are clamping down on the illegal trade in crude oil. The Nigerian government says it is losing up to $1bn a month as a result of the theft in the Niger Delta. Whilst some of the oil is refined locally, much of the stolen crude is taken out on barges to ships waiting off the coast. But with politicians and the military known to be benefitting from the trade, it seems unlikely that the practice will be be stopped. The BBC's Nigeria Correspondent Will Ross got a rare look at one of the illegal refineries.

There would be none of this if the large corporations didnt skim off all the money the people should be getting for their finite resources.....
They are pretty much forced to do something to live.....
The destruction of the third world continues apace....courtesy of the corporate greed.....

I kindof almost support this. We need to get off oil and fossil fuels but we're being held back by the oil and energy companies and we will continue to be until someone takes their profit away. I'd say the Nigerians found a legitimate way to make some money

reply to post by Griffo515


Personally I would like to lean toward desperation, but would need to know more about who is genuinely behind these. It takes a certain amount of co-ordination to setup and run them, which usually indicates a relatively small time player trying to get in on the 'resources' action, and very little chance it would be done for the benefit of the local people. This makes me lean further towards greed.


When the richest of the rich stop at nothing to rape the resources from any nation they can weasel themselves into, and take all the wealth that comes from it into their own pocket while essentially using slave labor to do it, the local small time power-mungers may try to attempt something similar for either the wealth or the control that it brings.

It is very sad to see