I was discussing oil theft with a friend recently and he automatically assumed I was talking about someone stealing gasoline from a service station. What comes to mind when you think of oil theft? How bad do you think the problem is?

My loyal readers are well-aware of oil theft. The majority of oil theft in the world occurs in Africa. As reported in www.upi.com.

In has gotten so bad that in Nigeria, Royal Dutch Shell is selling off four of its onshore Nigerian oil blocks. The constant theft of large volumes of oil from its pipelines is too problematic.

This highlights the West African state's growing battle with criminal syndicates that are stealing an average of 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day. That costs the continent's second largest economy (after South Africa) up to $1 billion a month. This criminal enterprise is on such a large scale that officials say it rivals the narcotics trade as the world's most lucrative crime. Oil and gas account for approximately 70 percent of the country's revenues.

Are those numbers mind-boggling or what?

It would be impossible to believe this thievery is the work of just a few intelligent thieves. There's a sophisticated organization.

This massive theft of Nigeria's key resource involves crooked politicians, security forces, oil industry personnel and oil traders.

There are also militant groups operating in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta, a labyrinth of swamps and creeks that provide cover for the complex network of crime.

Most likely even the military is involved, perhaps being paid off by crime syndicates. How can so many members of the military live such lavish lifestyles.

The acclaimed novelist Richard North Patterson describes what is happening in his novel “Eclipse.”

Stealing oil from pipelines or other facilities is known as "bunkering." It's now so pervasive, in the delta particularly, that there's little interest in trying to stamp it out. And, with the fix supposedly running all the way up to senior levels of government, there's little they can do despite the ruinous economic impact the oil theft has.

Since Shell, which pioneered Nigeria's oil business, started production from the Oloibiri field in 1958, other majors like Exxon Mobil, Texaco and Gulf Oil have moved in.

Nigeria historically was Africa's foremost producer, although Angola, further south on the Atlantic coast, is now producing more crude oil.

Initially, most of Nigeria's production was onshore, 75 percent in the 1970s, But now offshore wells are overtaking the land-based fields and deep-water drilling is now predominant -- and harder to steal from.

The damage inflicted by the oil thieves has forced some companies in the delta to shut down pipelines for extended periods of time.

Back in October, Shell closed its Trans-Niger pipeline, capable of pumping 150,000 barrels-per-day to the giant refinery because it had been holed so many times by thieves. It's one of the most sabotaged pipelines in the world and this was it's third shutdown in four months.

Nigeria's oil is being stolen not just from the pipelines, but from tank farms, export terminals, refinery storage, ports and even wellheads.

So just what is happening to all this oil and the money generated from its theft? Proceeds are laundered through world financial centers and used to buy assets in and outside Nigeria, polluting markets and financial institutions overseas, and creating political and legal hazards.

Much of the stolen oil is loaded on barges and small ships in the delta's creeks and carried to tankers offshore in the Gulf of Guinea, where it's taken to neighboring countries in West Africa, or further afield to Brazil, China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Balkans where it's processed by international crime syndicates.

I would be naive to think a theft awareness course could halt this type of theft and corruption. Sadly, we are all affected since this crime causes prices at the pumps to go up as well.