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“I came to collect and I collected” - a look at the

changing piracy situation in the West African region

Harry Pearce, Intelligence Analyst at Ambrey Risk, explores the risks faced by the port &

maritime industry at present, arguing that a redefinition of the High Risk Area is overdue

Piracy in West Africa is on the decline, but as the Nigerian saying ’I came to collect and I collected’ suggests, the midstream sector is

no less exposed. The past year has seen a reduction in attacks from outlying areas of Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zone towards inshore reaches of Akwa Ibom State. It would appear organised criminal syndicates are doubling-down on safeguarding their livelihoods as the ground shifts beneath them under a new Presidency.

While neighbouring waters are relatively benign, oil theft in Nigeria undermines foreign exchange earnings by as much as 8% of total revenue. This at a time when the Federal Government seeks to push through costly security sector reform and empower the Joint Task Force (JTF) to act on viable intelligence that leads to syndicates of the Brass, Nun and Middleton Rivers. Such is the extent of illicit bunkering in the region that the JTF have destroyed hundreds of illegal refineries and detained as many suspects without any meaningful fall in the volume of crude oil stolen between well heads and flow stations. A lack of convictions have yet to offer any real deterrence for disaffected coastal communities of the Niger Delta.

To secure more prosecutions and stem the illicit trade networks between Nigeria and her

neighbours, stakeholders have agreed to meet in Lomé this November to draw up a ‘continental charter’. Irrespective of the outcome, Nigeria’s President Buhari must first contend with the central challenges at home, including the equitable distribution of oil wealth and chronic politicisation of the armed forces. A recent purge of naval command and blacklisting of companies said to be trading in stolen crude is a start. But Buhari is under pressure to go further by revoking PPPs tasked with safeguarding Nigeria’s waterways and scaling down the

age-old amnesty programme in exchange for meaningful disarmament, reintegration and employment.

In the three month outlook, mounting speculation that Buhari will indeed act on such issues presents incentive enough for many militants to double down on sources of revenue at the expense of state security personnel. In late June, two dozen armed militants staged a seaborne attack on police personnel off Abonnema Wharf in Port Harcourt killing four people, including the

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local deputy superintendent. The incident is the third of such significance in as many weeks; gunmen have also recently targeted naval personnel near Brass shortly after a similar strike on a Maritime Police armoury in Calabar, which led to the loss of patrol vessels and a cache of weaponry.

Success is never final

A redefinition of the High Risk Area is overdue, but a wholesale revision would be highly premature. Debate between industry and nation states has achieved some consensus, particularly in regards to excluding the Red Sea and west coast India, but many highly capable stakeholders such as Oman want to go much, much further.

As the South West Monsoon subsidies in late September, another review of the High Risk Area is expected. But the winds of change are already blowing amid a downturn in compliance with the industry safety standard, BMP4. And as dialogue shifts towards regional states with the means to police major shipping routes, local engagement will become ever more critical. In the meantime, the transfer of responsibility remains in its infancy and no comprehensive barrier to illicit markets exists in states where unemployment is highest, such as Somalia. Set amongst the current level of unrest across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen, many will inevitably consider life over livelihood. This fragile environment can only provide for organised criminal syndicates to use sympathetic coastal communities to secure highly profitable

returns against relatively low risk investments. So as international naval commitments do retire, the operational burden will become dependent upon economies where even fewer resources are directed towards a relief in unregulated fishing, arms trafficking and a burgeoning narcotics circuit. In recent weeks, Somalia’s Director General of Fisheries has cautioned that a resurgent illegal fishing industry off Hobyo and Mudug threatens to reverse the ebb in piracy in coastal waters.

Piracy is at an all time low, but other concerns among the wider shipping community are well-founded. For example, the recent repatriation of dozens of convicted pirates from Mombasa’s Shimo la Tewa Prison might appear to mark an important milestone in the prosecution of pirate syndicates in their home nations. Not only are there serious questions over the funding and integrity of the new purpose-built detention facilities in Somalia, but a number of pirates held in Yemen have recently escaped prison and returned to Puntland, where authorities continue to suffer at the hands of the Salafi Islamist group Harakat al-Shabaab. Buoyed by recent restrictions to formal remittance services, al-Shabaab are likely to exploit unregulated forms of brokering, known as Hawala, to safeguard resources that largely dried up following an AMISOM offensive against their stronghold in Kismayo and more recently, Barawe and Kuday Island. Based in the Galaga Mountains, near to the coastal town of Bosaso, the group have targeted prisons and ports in the past year. Across the Gulf of Aden the lack of effective governance is

no less severe. Not only has the rise of the ISIS-backed Wilayat Sana’a not detracted from the ability of AQAP, who stormed the central prison in Taiz in June, but this is the second such attack after a similar strike in the port city of al Mukalla in April. As recently as 3 July, Puntland authorities in Bosaso received 3500 Somali returning refugees from al Mukalla, the most in a single day since the start of the civil war in Yemen. In the one year outlook, civil and sectarian unrest is highly likely to endure; a return to piracy is quite feasible.

Failure can be fatal

South East Asia is a tale of two halves. A decline in the number of monthly pirate attacks over the past year has been brought about by a fall in robbery at anchor. The modest rise in hijackings has been greatly amplified.

Remarkable as many of these hijackings may be they are largely confined to the waters off Johor State and sustained by international networks, as evidenced by the boarding of Orkim Harmony - a 7301dwt tanker hijacked by Indonesian nationals in Malaysian waters and later secured south of Vietnam. In 2015, there have been a dozen hijackings specific to small regional tankers, many of them violent in nature. The attempted seizure of Orkim Harmony’s cargo of $5.6m of petroleum, during which one crew member was shot, is a case in point. At least three crew members have died due to piracy in the past year; many others have been seriously injured.

The greatest concentration of robberies undoubtedly fall to Indonesia’s often marginalised communities around the Riau Archipelago; they are shaped by their proximity to Malaysia and Singapore. Despite noteworthy dialogue among ASEAN leaders, greater resilience has yet to move beyond individual systems of deterrence, which only favours criminal syndicates who cross borders with impunity. Like Indonesia, Singapore has traditionally sought to distance itself from competing territorial claims and only recently moved to expedite a legal framework to resolve a lack of synergy. But there are more fundamental issues at play. The inability of Indonesia’s President Widodo to extend Jakarta’s anti-corruption reform agenda to the distant security services around Riau will ensure there is little resolution at the heart of the problem. In the meantime, Malaysia’s

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sensitivities over the Nine Dash Line mirror those of its neighbours and offset otherwise credible dialogue for promoting interoperability between local powers, rather than third party sponsors. In the past month, Japan has conducted exercises with the Philippines while Indonesia has staged bilateral training with India.

Attack of the Clones

No longer a phantom menace to the West, Islamic State has grown to a global presence in the space of a year. As the group end Ramadan losing ground to the Kurdish YPG in north-eastern Syria, at least a dozen overseas ‘provinces’ have pledged their allegiance. Amongst their number are the sizeable Pakistani Taliban subsidiary Tehreek-i-Khilafat, the Filipino insurgency born by Abu Sayyaf and the Sinai group formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis. Yet while these new adherents may well be emboldened by porous borders, their home nations offer no new opportunities; the threat from Islamic State remains largely unchanged. The Egyptian-based Wilayet Sinai is a case in point. The group will likely continue to stage attacks against government infrastructure in Sinai. The notable strike on a patrol vessel last week near Sheikh Zuweid poses no additional risk to maritime assets elsewhere in Egypt.

IS in Libya is different. Making its debut a little earlier than most others, it has found a home from home in the country – this, despite recently loosing Derna, a city they have held since late 2014. On July 10, the group confirmed it was in full control of the coastal town of Harawah, near Ras Lanuf, having initially entered the suburbs in June. In parallel, ISIS has strengthened its position around

Tripoli against Salah Badi’s protection alliance, the Samoud Front, while consolidating its hold in the port city of Sirte over the Ferjani tribe. Not only are the recent gains alarming because a reported truce between ISIS and Al-Qaeda set the conditions for success against the counter-ISIS vanguard Brigade 166, but EU officials have since confirmed for the first time that militants are moving amongst migrants on the Mediterranean coastline. Upon taking Harawah, ISIS conducted a show of force with graphic indication of vessel seizures in the harbour of Sirte. The Libyan Government has repeatedly called for a force in territorial waters to prevent the flow of militants, illicit arms and crude oil.

In the coming months, the challenge for Libya remains one of delivering on the Skhirat Agreement quick enough that it achieves consensus before the HoR’s mandate expires. In the meantime, institutions of state will continue to be removed from societal grievances, such that the myriad of competing regional interest groups do not demand accountability and corruption endures; the country’s

most valuable hostage to negotiations will remain oil and its derivatives. It is for this reason Islamic State are seeking to destroy hydrocarbon assets. The group have already attacked oilfields closest to Sirte, including Dahra, Bahi and Ghani, which service export terminals such as as-Sidr and Marsa el-Hariga. In an indication of the associated risks to maritime assets, NOC recently attempted to lift a force majeure at Ras Lanuf, which has been in place since December – something the central region Petroleum Facilities Guard, who do not recognise Tripoli-based management have countered saying they will impound any vessel attempting to load cargo. In the past month, the Tobruk-backed Libyan Air Force has also sunk a vessel near Mareesa, which was purportedly supplying government opposition forces. Several similar such attacks have taken place in the past year, including the bombing of a Greek-operated Libyan-chartered tanker servicing a NOC cargo from Brega to Derna, which was said to be supplying militants.

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Harry Pearce, Intelligence Analyst, Ambrey Risk

“In the coming months, the challenge for Libya remains one of delivering on the Skhirat Agreement quick enough that it achieves consensus before the HoR’s mandate expires...”

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