Gas piracy what is

The area is more dangerous than the Somali coast. The EU wants to do something about it. Nigeria's new naval chief of staff has ordered his officers to take a hardened approach to pirates. Media outlets published reports of dramatic scenes on board the vessel: While the ship's crew cowered in a safe room fearing for their lives, the pirates quietly set about their work getting to them.

It took them six hours to break open the door to the so-called Citadel but they did it. In the end, one crew member was killed and 15 others were kidnapped. The men have since been freed, but it remains unclear if ransom money was paid for their release. According to the International Maritime Bureau IMB , there were maritime kidnappings recorded in —and of them took place in the Gulf of Guinea. Much like the capture of the Mozart, many of those kidnappings followed an increasingly dangerous script.

In one case, they were on board a vessel for more than 24 hours, totally unchallenged. Increasingly bold kidnappers are creating fear around the world, and especially in the important sea lanes that traverse the Gulf of Guinea.

This area facilitates trade between southern and western Africa, and is a key route for valuable goods such as crude oil emanating from Angola and Nigeria. His country took the EU's rotating, half-year presidency in January. This has included security upgrades for harbors and programs designed to improve cooperation between security forces in the region.

In January, EU heads of state and government took things a step further. A number of European navy vessels are already active in the region and these are to be networked in the future in order to communicate patrol responsibilities and exchange information on pirate activity.

Whether navy vessels rush to help others under attack is decided on a national case-by-case basis. In November, for instance, an Italian fleet used a helicopter to chase off pirates who had boarded a Danish ship. He has called for more aid to neighboring states, which lack almost everything — including well-trained naval officers.

Many countries, said Ali, don't even have functioning radar systems to monitor their waters. Things don't look much better when it comes to the ships. It's not just the huge tankers exporting oil and gas from Nigeria and Ghana that are targeted. Commercial ships from smaller countries are also in the sights of the pirates. Most of the attacks have been against ships involved in oil and gas transportation, such as tankers, bulk carriers and tugs.

Fishing vessels have also been targeted. The coastline off Nigeria saw the most attacks in This is partly because of "petro-piracy", targeting tankers from Nigeria's rich oil and gas fields. There were also incidents reported at the loading and anchorage facilities in the Nigerian port of Lagos.

Piracy in the form of hijacking and kidnapping for ransom payments was also common off the coasts of Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon. Rich pickings at sea, political instability, the lack of law enforcement and poverty on land are all factors which have contributed to the increase in piracy.

Key Points. The first quarter of saw a spike in piracy around the world, with 47 attacks compared to 38 for the same period last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The Gulf of Guinea, a key production hub surrounded by eight oil exporting countries in West Africa, has emerged as a global hot spot.

A worker inspect facilities on an upstream oil drilling platform at the Total oil platform at Amenem, 35 kilometers away from Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta in Fighters with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta MEND raise their riffles to celebrate news of a successful operation by their colleagues against the Nigerian army in the Niger Delta on September 17, On the other side of the continent, the Gulf of Guinea is now viewed as presenting a much more serious piracy problem.

Last year a record crew members were kidnapped in 22 separate incidents, according to the International Maritime Bureau. But an increase in officially reported attacks does not necessarily mean that the actual number of attacks has increased.

And individual cases must be analysed carefully. Attacks against small cargo ships trading solely in the Gulf of Guinea, for example, are often linked to criminal disputes or other illicit activities at sea. These incidents are very different from random attacks targeting merchant ships in international trade which are solely aimed at kidnapping seafarers to collect a large ransom and are, therefore, a profit-driven crime.

Similarly, reports about suspicious approaches against merchant ships off Somalia are still frequent. Most are related to smuggling operations between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula or simply to everyday fishing activities. Pirate attacks may grab most headlines, but maritime security is important for wider reasons.

This includes maritime trade, fishing activities, offshore oil and gas production or coastal tourism. Also, criminality at sea and on land are closely linked. Government agencies need to recognise this if security is to be improved.