As a practice of piracy, petro-piracy, also sometimes called oil piracy or petro 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.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2021): ”Why has the ’black’ market in the Gulf of Guinea endure?”, Australian Journal of Maritime & Ocean Affairs.p. 7 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.Dua, Jatin (2019): “Piracy and Maritime Security in Africa”, Oxford University Press, pp. 1-21. 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).ICC International Maritime Bureau (2021): “Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships”, ICC-IMB. 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.Maritime Executive (April 2021): “Kidnapped Seafarers Released After Month in Captivity in West Africa”, The Maritime Executive Ltd. Accessed at: https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/kidnapped-seafarers-released-after-month-in-captivity-in-west-africa (05-25-2021) Pirates most often targets vessels carrying oil products and kidnappings of crew for ransom. 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.

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.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2021): ”Why has the ’black’ market in the Gulf of Guinea endure?”, Australian Journal of Maritime & Ocean Affairs 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. 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…”.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2021): ”Why has the ’black’ market in the Gulf of Guinea endure?”, Australian Journal of Maritime & Ocean Affairs.p. 1 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.”.Murphy, Martin N. (May 2013): “Petro-Piracy: Oil and Troubled Waters”, Elsevier Ltd. Pp. 424-437. P. 424 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.Hassan, Daud & Hasan, Sayed (2017): “Effectiveness of the Current Regimes to Combat Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea: An Evaluation”, African Journal of Legal Studies 10, pp. 35-65.

Practice

Definition The practice of petro-piracy can be defined as “illegal taking of oil after vessel hijacks, which are sometimes executed with the use of motorships” and speedboats.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2021): ”Why has the ’black’ market in the Gulf of Guinea endure?”, Australian Journal of Maritime & Ocean Affairs.p. 7 Petro-pirates are hijacking vessels and then selling its content of oil to gain financial rewards, but also, recently, kidnapping crews for ransom.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2021): ”Why has the ’black’ market in the Gulf of Guinea endure?”, Australian Journal of Maritime & Ocean Affairs.p. 8 Petro-piracy can be seen as “a seaborne extension of the politics of insurgency on land”, especially from the Niger Delta with social unrest, poverty, and violence.Dua, Jatin (2019): “Piracy and Maritime Security in Africa”, Oxford University Press, pp. 1-21. P. 13 In recent years, the practice of kidnappings for ransom has been an associated concept in the act of petro-piracy, becoming the dominating act of violence against crews at vessels.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2021): ”Why has the ’black’ market in the Gulf of Guinea endure?”, Australian Journal of Maritime & Ocean Affairs. Central to the practice of petro-piracy are taking oil illegally, the use of motorships and speed boats, selling of oil for economic rewards, and kidnapping of crews for ransom. The practice of petro-piracy is certainly related to, although different from, the individual concepts of oil-theft, oil bunkering, and, as mentioned, kidnappings. Though, the definitional element of “illegal taking of oil” encompasses oil-theft to the extent that it happens at sea or on territorial and internal waters.

In terms of being conceptualised as petro-piracy, the practice must live up to what is defined as piracy – illegal acts of violence, detention, or depredation for private ends against any shipcraft, aircraft, or against anyone or property.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2018): “Crude oil theft, petro-piracy and illegal trade in fuel: An enterprise-value chain perspective of energy-crime in the Gulf of Guinea”, Lancaster University. Pp. 1-280.P. 13 Though, as such the concept of piracy is contested in terms of defining where the practice of piracy is committed. In the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the United Nations (UN) defines piracy as only emerging at the seas and not in territorial nor internal waters. This narrow definition excludes much of the petro-piracy incidents in Gulf of Guinea, as many emerges on territorial waters. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) expands the definition of piracy to include what is termed armed robbery, being “any illegal act of violence or detention or any act of depredation, or threat thereof” on internal water, territorial waters, and on archipelagic waters.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2018): “Crude oil theft, petro-piracy and illegal trade in fuel: An enterprise-value chain perspective of energy-crime in the Gulf of Guinea”, Lancaster University. Pp. 1-280. P. 14 Even though this difference bears practical differences of legal jurisdiction, a broader definition of piracy, encompassing both piracy at the high seas and armed robbery at internal, territorial, and archipelagic waters, is generally accepted in the literature.Murphy, Martin N. (May 2013): “Petro-Piracy: Oil and Troubled Waters”, Elsevier Ltd. Pp. 424-437.Murphy, Martin N. (2013): “Petro-Piracy: Predation and counter-predation in Nigerian waters” pp. 61-90 in: Gulifoyle, Douglas (ed.) (2013): Modern Piracy – Legal Challenges and Re-sponses, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.Kamal-Deen, Ali (2015): “The Anatomy of Gulf of Guinea Piracy”, Naval War College Review, pp. 93-118.Daxecker, Ursula and Prins, Brandon (2021): Pirate Lands: Governance and Maritime Piracy, New York: Oxford University Press. As such, petro-piracy can be placed within the broader definition of piracy, encompassing both piracy at the seas and armed robbery. Understood as a practice, piracy generally encompasses activities such as “going out to sea and targeting vessels, boarding vessels, stealing valuables, taking hostages, steering vessels, safeguarding hostages and vessels, negotiating ransoms, releasing vessels and crews, and distributing ransom income”, objects such as “skiffs, weapons, navigation devices, or ladders for boarding”, and skills and know-how such as “how to board vessels, to handle hostages, negotiate or organise ransom deliveries".Bueger, Christian (2013): “Practice, Pirates and Coast Guards: The Grand Narrative of Somali piracy”, Third World Quarterly, pp. 1811-1827. P. 1815.

The origin of petro-piracy can be traced back to the globalization of commerce and criminality.Balogun, Wasiu A. (2018): “Crude oil theft, petro-piracy and illegal trade in fuel: An enterprise-value chain perspective of energy-crime in the Gulf of Guinea”, Lancaster University. Pp. 1-280. Petro-piracy, oil-theft and oil bunkering appeared as a practice when the business of oil production and oil transportation began to dominate the Gulf of Guinea and West Africa at large. Though, it should only be considered as a phase of the longer history of piracy in West Africa – spanning form the slave trade, to the palm oil trade, and now the oil business. Certainly, the exploration and production of oil, and the following boom of foreign trade, changed the piracy in West Africa. For instance, in Nigeria oil was discovered in 1956, which in the next decades made the business flourish, and the port of the capital, Lagos, boasted of more 400 anchored vessels, creating a perfect environment for piracy and robbery at large. The hub of piracy activity then shifted to the Niger Delta in Nigeria, occupied by aggrieved, militant groups, such as MEND, in the form of militarised and politicised gangs protesting local control of resources.Pérouse de Montclos, Marc-Antoine (2012): “Maritime Piracy in Nigeria: Old Wine in New Bottles?”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, pp. 531-541. To this day, the Niger Delta is the area of epicentre for piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea then became a well-organised business, taking advantage of the oil-industry in the region. What makes piracy in Gulf of Guinea special is that the piracy activities are connected to and, most likely, originates from issues on land.Vreÿ, Francois (2009): “Bad Order at Sea: From the Gulf of Aden to the Gulf of Guinea”, African Security Review, pp. 17-30. Some of these issues are general to the states of Gulf of Guinea, such as the curse of oil, over-dependence on the sea, and economic depredation, but even more specific to Nigeria with severe corruption, insufficient or failed governmental initiatives, the Nigerian youth, environmental degradation, and, especially, the Niger Delta with its militant groups, social unrest, and many more issues.

Aspects of petro-piracy The semantic field of petro-piracy is a clustering of terms interacting with each other.Sartori, Giovanni (1984): Social Science Concepts: A Systemic Analysis, Sage Publications. The semantically related concepts are oil-theft, oil bunkering, kidnappings, and maritime security.