In Benin, Africa, this kind of refueling stall can be seen everywhere on the roadside, and people here refuel directly and willfully tell the boss to fill up, because the gasoline sold here is not only pure oil, but also very low price, never short of two pounds.
A liter of gasoline converted into about two yuan is only about two yuan, less than half the local official price, so the business is very hot.
If it is not too far away, I want to drive here and willfully say to the boss, no. 95 fill me up, the low-cost gasoline of the roadside stall makes the regular gas station door, and the gas station employee looks at the gas station stall on the opposite side of the crowd, looking very helpless.
Illegal gas stations all over Benin make the government lose at least $20 million in taxes a year, so friends may ask, such illegal gas stations are so blatantly opened opposite the state-run gas stations, so that the regular gas station business is so dismal, the state does not prohibit it? In fact, this is also the helpless move of the Beninese government.
Benin is one of the least developed countries in the world. People here live mainly on agriculture, and illegal oil sales are a source of income for a quarter of the population, and if it is completely banned, these people will not be able to support themselves.
So the question is, where does the oil from this roadside stall come from? Why is it so cheap?
The reason why Beninese drivers can add such high-quality and inexpensive gasoline,
They have to thank their neighbour Nigeria.
Nigeria is the world's sixth-largest exporter of crude oil, with nearly 10,000 litres of gasoline smuggled from Nigeria to Benin every day. Nigeria's crude oil quality is very high, attracting a large number of international oil companies to invest in the construction of factories, people here also found that this high-quality crude oil does not require a complex process, as long as a simple distillation can get gasoline, so that some local people see the way to get rich, they began to steal crude oil from the oil company's oil pipeline, and then transported to the waterway, like a labyrinth of mangrove forests for refining.
The Niger Delta is home to the world's third largest mangrove forest, which provides an excellent venue for their illegal oil refining.
According to oil companies' estimates, these illegal refineries steal at least 200,000 barrels a day from the 1.5 million barrels of crude they produce, and because the equipment is so rudimentary, the refined crude oil is dumped directly into the river, causing serious damage to the ecology here, and the refineries usually start working at nightfall.
Crews will take advantage of the night to drive through the labyrinth of waterways to the work site, where they will see a fire that burns in illegal refineries.
The people of the illegal refinery are very wary of the reporters, and they are very angry to see someone filming them, they are worried that the reporter's report will cut off their financial road, and the people in this village have been rich in oil refining over the years, and every family has built cement cottages from the chalets, and the streets in the village have been paved with asphalt roads.
Belmar, the owner of a local refinery who has been in the refining business for five years, agreed to take the reporter on a tour of his refinery at repeated requests.
On the surface of the river, which could not be seen, he found his refining workshop with years of experience, and the whole refining process was very simple and rude.
Nigerians are familiar with everyone, refining gasoline is to put some wood under a tank full of crude oil and then pour some gasoline to ignite, the core of the whole process is to grasp the strength of the fire, once the fire is out of control, the barrel of crude oil will be detonated, the refining technology of the two barrels of oil engineers are estimated to be in tears.
After several hours of heating, because of the different boiling points of various oil products, gasoline and diesel will evaporate from the crude oil in turn, and after cooling through the pipeline, it will become liquid gasoline and diesel, which is the refined oil sold on the market.
It is so simple and rude, but the whole process is also very dangerous, a little spark will cause an explosion, so the workers here are working naked, to prevent clothes from being burned or because of friction to produce static electricity caused by explosions, workers are rubbing shoulders with the god of death every moment, an hour can earn 15 euros, which is three times the local average wage, the relatively considerable income makes many local young people desperate, doing dangerous work of meeting God at any time, and many people die every year because of the oil refining explosion.
On April 24, 2022, a massive explosion occurred at an illegal local oil refinery, killing more than 100 people.
After the gasoline is practiced, they will sleep in the venue all night to guard, waiting for the smuggling ship to come to pick up the goods.
The Nigerian government has also been cracking down on such illegal refineries, but because there are so many such smugglers and illegal refineries, and these refinery points in the heart of the mangrove forest make it difficult for the military to access, and the intricate waterways let outsiders in and get lost, even if they are discovered by the army, this is not a big problem, just a few banknotes can be fine.
Belmar said that if they didn't pay, the army would come and arrest them and put them in jail.
Illegal oil refining has enriched some people, but also let many people lose the ecological environment on which to survive, the water surface is full of floating oil pollution, so that the fish in the river are almost extinct, and the fishermen who used to rely on fishing for a living can only change their careers to dig sand for a living.
The crude oil of these refineries comes from the oil pipeline of the nearby oil company, they only need to make an opening in the main road, and then use the pipeline to pour the crude oil directly into their barge, in less than ten minutes, Xiaobei is loaded with at least five thousand liters of crude oil, filled with crude oil, the barge begins to drive to the production base, the process is also very dangerous, the huge barge is like a floating explosive, a little fire will make the whole ship ascend to the sky in situ. After arriving at the refinery
Xiaobei will unload the crude oil on the ship into the storage tank, and then begin to heat and refine, the refined gasoline will be transported to Cotonou in Benin, which is the border area between Nigeria and Benin, there is a secret port established by smugglers, the person in charge of this port operation is prosperous, because they have bought the local customs officers, every barrel of gasoline that leaves here, the customs side can get a commission, so their work has not been hindered by any obstacles.
The person in charge said that the gasoline that leaves the country every day can fill at least a thousand tanker trucks, and the gasoline that enters Benin will be delivered to the gas station on the side of the road by special motorcycle riders.
Antewan is a local gasoline rider, his motorcycle can be loaded with 14 oil drums at a time, a total of 700 liters of gasoline, can earn 5 euros at a time, in order to avoid customs inspections, he will walk a small dirt road in poor condition, which also increases the risk of transportation, if he falls, it is likely to be directly cremated on the spot.
Antoine also fell once, his motorcycle also caught fire, fortunately he was not injured, but every year there are still more than a dozen unfortunate riders because of accidents on the way to transport oil, to say that so many local people have become part of illegal oil refining, it is also a helpless move for many people.
Nigeria's rich oil resources bring huge profits to oil companies and illegal refiners, but they do not bring much benefit to the local people, and also bring serious damage to the local ecology, farmers can not cultivate the land, fishermen have no fish to fight, in order to survive, many people have no choice but to join this industry to make a living.