As a practice of piracy, petro-piracy, also sometimes called oil piracy or petrol piracy, is defined as “illegal taking of oil after vessel hijacks, which are sometimes executed with the use of motorships” with huge potential financial rewards.[1] Petro-piracy is mostly a practice that is connected to and originates from piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, but examples of petro-piracy outside of the Gulf of Guinea is not uncommon. At least since 2008, the Gulf of Guinea has been home to pirates practicing petro-piracy by targeting the region's extensive oil industry.[2] Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has risen in the last years to become the hot spot of piracy globally with 76 actual and attempted attacks, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).[3] Most of these attacks in the Gulf of Guinea take place in inland or territorial waters, but recently pirates have been proven to venture further out to sea, e.g. crew members were kidnapped from the tanker David B. 220 nautical miles outside of Benin.[4] Pirates most often targets vessels carrying oil products and kidnappings of crew for ransom.[3] IMB reports that countries in the Gulf of Guinea, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Togo, Congo, and, especially, Nigeria, have experienced petro-piracy and kidnappings of crew as the most common trends of piracy attacks in the Gulf of Guinea.[3]
The region of the Gulf of Guinea brings together a very large number of oil-rich, coastal states, forming a coastline of 6.000 kilometres from Senegal in West Africa to Angola in Southern Africa.[5] Furthermore, the region supplies a very large amount of oil to European and American markets, as well as being an important transit route for international oil transportation.[5] These two factors, oil production and international oil transportation, make the Gulf of Guinea a favourable area for petro-piracy. Off the coast of Nigeria and around the Niger Delta is “the epicentre for illicit energy-maritime criminal activities with petro-pirates…”.[6] Especially, on the coastal waters in Nigeria, acts of depredation against ships and fixed oil installations have been taking place, consequently resulting in “far greater financial losses and a far wider economic impact than anything seen so far anywhere in the world.”.[7] Generally, piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is to some extent a Nigerian problem – as it originates for insurgency and instability as well as corruption in Nigeria.[8]