What Oil Buyers Need to Know

Want to Buy Crude Oil From Nigeria?

Nigerian Oil Services Notice

None of this is what the Nigerian government wants you to know. The NNPC wants you to believe that they are the only entity that can legally provide oil and thereby publishes specific protocols for transacting oil deals.  The following is the way the Nigerian oil business is actually run.

Real sellers of Nigerian bonny light crude oil will not let the general populous know who they are.  It would put them at considerable personal risk. Since the privatization of the oil industry there are multiple sources. Fake allocations are also sold on the streets. The NNPC issued almost no new allocations in 2013. A seller’s agent or boy will never let you know who his seller is because as a buyer you will just do an end-around on him and leave him out of the income cycle.  The real sales of sweet crude oil appear to be made on the streets first. But that is not really the case.  It is like the trading floor New York Stock Exchange only without walls and electronics.  This is a person to person business.

Please don’t try to do transactions over the Internet or via the phone.  There is nothing you can buy over the Internet that will advance your oil buying efforts.

If you want to buy oil from Nigeria then knowing the right people, not the ones that are so prevalent (the crooks) is absolutely essential to get to the first step in any transaction.  There are oil buyer’s Mandates living in hotels for months and even years trying to find legitimate sellers that can complete a transaction honestly.  Their expenses have to be paid by somebody and almost always are with no results. Potential Facilitators or Mandates will sometimes say, “You need to make a commitment”, to get up front money for their expenses and then never deliver because they’re not connected.
You can not purchase off-OPEC oil through official channels.
Nigeria is an OPEC country. OPEC set quota for what their members are allowed to produce and sell. OPEC believes this is what is keeping oil prices high. So as an OPEC producer Nigeria and their supplier report the official numbers of production and sale to conform to the rules set by OPEC.
“According to the International Energy Agency, Nigeria produced about 2.53 million barrels per day, well below its oil production capacity of over 3 million barrels per day, in 2011.” wikipedia.org
Actual production today is over 4 million barrels per day. So where does all that unreported oil go? It is sold through the Private Offering market.
This is a very quiet marketplace where real sellers are selling crude oil to resellers and refineries around the world. All of these sales are made under the watchful eye of the NNPC and are quietly given Authority To Sell (ATS) Nigeria’s excess production. That pool of oil is known as the Bulk Equity account. In essence it is unallotted crude oil. Allocation holders are usually given an allocation by bringing in the buyers POF or bank instrument. So most allocations are already sold before they are even given. An allocation is a fixed amount of oil issued for a fixed time frame that is given to a company to sell. When an allottee sells their allocation that is the extent of their supply. It they want to sell more they have to dip into the bulk equity account but they can not extend their allotment or get a new one without the NNPC approval.
But it is the unallocated oil where most of the off-OPEC sales are generated. NNPC Approved Fiduciaries are mostly old-timers that have been in the business for a few years and have relations with the necessary government and NNPC officials whom they can call, send some money, and get authority to sell some of that excess oil production.

Once you have found a real oil seller any deal has to have government (NNPC) approval.  If you think you have a crude oil deal and yet do not have the support of those in government then you can not complete delivery.  Once again, if you do not know the right people with significant influence you will never be able to take delivery.

The NNPC is the front door. The NNPC has been given title by government to sell all of Nigeria’s oil and is charged with the responsibility to transact every drop of crude that leaves the country.  They publish procedures and if you go direct to them you can get it done if you are a refinery or have several sales already completed and can make a commitment to invest some of your profits into Nigeria’s growing economy. Otherwise forget it. This is the OPEC pathway.

Then there is the back door.  You must find a politically connected entity that, with a phone call, can get crude oil released to them to sell.  This may not seem fair but every government in the world works this way.  Those that govern make advantages for themselves.  For instance, in the USA it is illegal to do insider trading.  But if you are a congressman or senator its legal.  (You didn’t think they were working for the measly pay the government pays them, did you?)  Know this, there are those that have or do work for the government that will announce that every notice of available oil is fraudulent unless it is an OPEC offering.  That is only partially true.  The fact is that if someone says they have oil available you had better check all of their documentation through the appropriate government offices.  The fact is that this back door only works if you are the end buyer and can prove you have the capability to financially get it done.  Bottom line the only crude that comes out this way is already sold.  Nobody is sitting around with a boatload of oil waiting for a buyer to show up.  Just like nobody is sitting on 10 or 100 kilos of gold waiting for a buyer to show up so they can offer them a discount.  This is all done quietly with personal contacts.

Then there are the shipping issues. The multiple ways a contract can be written creates multiple lifting pathways.   Some of these pathways are more expensive than others. Some open the opportunity for fraud or stealing of the goods, or for disgruntle locals to sabotage the transaction.  Testing (QnQ) is critical at this point to ensure that you are actually getting what you are buying.  There are shippers that have concocted secret ways to manipulate the numbers, built secret containers in the ship or valving that controls water to be pumped in under the oil or off-loading in the harbor.  Then you can not get the quantity that you had expected.

The time it takes to complete an oil transaction runs up expenses.  Sometimes performance bonds have to be paid because the transaction can not be completed in a timely manner required by the allocation commitment.  The possibility of loosing money in the oil business because of delays, corruption or fraud is not unusual. Once a contract is signed time is of the essence.

Wasting time with sellers that can not perform or with buyers that can not pay is the norm.  I have seen fraudsters selling a list of “real sellers” for as much as $50,000.  The inequity between $300 dollars per month (the average income of a Nigerian) and millions of potential dollars being made in the business brings in the most crafty and inventive people, those with exceptional personal skills and hidden inventive ways to screw you – well, there are many more of these people in the trade than there are real oil sellers and crude buyers.

Yet in 2010 there was 69.614 Billion USD of oil sold, a 20 %increase over the previous year (source IMF = OPEC Numbers).  Nigeria is the fifth-largest exporter of oil to the United States.

So transactions are actually going on. Somebody knows how to get the job done – to complete transactions where EACH side’s interests are protected.  Every now and then you will find an oil facilitator that knows who the real sellers of BLCO are, has the political connections to push through a transaction and requires proven honest shipping concerns that can do delivery in the actual quantity and quality that is being paid for.

If you are looking for such a facilitator, as Nigerian Oil Services is, then please feel free to give us a call to get the deal completed.

If you have a mandate that is already in Abuja, Lagos or the Delta State and has not been successful in completing a transaction we would be happy to help him or her find a real crude oil seller and complete a successful transaction.

If you do not have a Mandate we would be happy to serve your interests with integrity and help your business take delivery.

There is no advance money required. Everything is done through legitimate established banking channels. Both side’s interests are protected procedurally and contractually.

If you have a sincere interest in buying oil from Nigeria please feel free to give us a call.  We will send you an application promptly.

Jeff Scott – Director of Communications Google

Oluwakemi I Kasali – President

Nigerian Oil Services LLC

(I had to leave the phone number off because of bots that harvest phone numbers and sell the numbers to auto-dialer companies) I’ll put it in an image soon.

You can always use the contact form which is here.