Aden’s Black Hole!

بقلم - فتحي بن لزرق

I received a kind invitation from the leadership of Aden Refinery Company to respond to comments made by officials in the Saudi program about the unloading operations of the Saudi grant.

The visit was limited to this framework, but later the visit expanded to include many things. I was able to get answers about many questions, and I think people need to know them.

The dear friend Nasir Mohsen Shayef who is considered the most important staff of Aden refineries, coordinated the visit to the facility.

The visit started at 10:00 am and we met with Eng. Saeed Mohamed, Chief Engineer and Acting Director of Refineries. We took a tour to all the refinery sites, especially the rehabilitation project of the power plant in the refinery.

We have found great and effective Chinese efforts. The power station is expected to be completed with a capacity of 22 megawatts within six months and this is the first comprehensive rehabilitation process since the construction of the refineries decades ago.

I listened to Chinese officials for a full explanation of their work, and the efforts at the power station are great and commendable. But that is not our subject.

Later we headed to the headquarters of the administration and met a number of the most senior officials in the station, including Engineer Saeed Mohammed, Chief Engineer and Acting Manager, Eng. Ahmed Musaad: Operations Manager, Farouq Khalifa: Production Manager, Ahmed Al Sayed: Accounts Manager, Captain Ali Awad: Oil Port Director, Abdelkader Mansour: Energy Manager, Omar Gabali: Deputy Director of Production and Technical Representative of Refinery in the Saudi Grant Committee .. Mohammed Al Mosaibli: head of the syndicate .. Nasser Shayef: Media Director of the refinery.

I Thanked them at the beginning for their kind invitation and conveyed to them the observations of the brothers in the administration of the Saudi Program for the Development and Reconstruction of Yemen about the difficulties they face.

The response of the refinery’s leadership was clear in this regard. They said that they welcomed any inquiries from the first moment and contacted the management of Saudi company (ARAMCO), and confirmed they are ready to receive the next shipment. This is what happened later.

The officials at the refineries said that the shipments allocated to the Aden power station was determined by officials of the Ministry of Electricity and Electricity Corporation, and included an estimate of 62 thousand tons of diesel and 30 thousand tons of fuel for the power station.

 

According to officials at the Aden Refinery Company, the administration responded very well to all the observations of the Saudi program, and also emptied all the quantities received. Moreover the Refinery emptied the remaining 10 thousand tons of the shipment to a ship provided by the Refinery after filling its reservoirs.

All things till know are fine.

I went to the refinery company to understand the story of the huge surplus of fuel that being discovered in Aden due to the Saudi procedures, and this is the big black hole that I want to reveal its mysteries.

Now I will start talking about this subject, from the point of view of the refinery company and their officials.

The Saudis sent the first shipment, about 62 thousand tons, they sent the second and the third shipment as well. Later, the total amount was about 190 thousand tons of diesel and 90 thousand tons of oil.

The shipment was sent according to a statement from the Electricity Corporation and its Ministry.

The shipment arrived at the oil port where it was unloaded in the refinery tanks. After three consecutive shipments, all parties discovered that the shipment total was 190 thousand tons of diesel and 90 thousand tons of oil.

After three months of operating power plants in (Aden – Lahj – Abin – Shabwa – Hadramot – AlMaharah) it became clear that the total consumption of all these stations for a period of 3 months amounted to 90 thousand tons of diesel, and the surplus was about 100 thousand tons of diesel .. This is because  the Saudis have brought a private company to follow up the process of the transferring the fuel from the oil company to the moment of unloading in the reservoirs of power plants in Aden and other cities.

The Saudi grant is never our case because it is going well due to these measures.

Our case is: What is the black hole which swallowed monthly for 4 years about 62 thousand tons of fuel inside Aden stations only? ..

I asked the officials at Aden refinery and told them: “Let us agree that there is a huge corruption in this case, and that a large part of the fuel allocated for power plants is being manipulated, and that about 100 thousand tons of fuel go into the pockets of the corrupt.

They said: “Yes .. no doubt the fuel of Aden is swallowed up through an organized corruption process.. the government is silent and must start an investigation on it.

I said to them: “OK. I want to understand the subject from the beginning. The story begins with a tender declaration. Then the trader Ahmad Al-Eisy often wins the tender. ” Ahmed Al-Eisy imports derivatives for the refineries.

I deliberately mentioned the name of al-Eisy because I know that many people will say: Why you do not mention the name of al-Eisy, Fathi, and you try to ignore it?

I’m talking here and I think the refinery officials will read this article.

I told them: “What confirms to us that Al-Eisy brings in the full quantity?.. There are those who say he brings in incomplete quantities, then and you sign the documents, and then you send the quantity to the power plants, despite being incomplete.

Refinery officials said: “This is impossible, because we receive this quantity and pumped it later to the tanks of the oil company according to the same tender data, and data must be identical to what we had pump .

So even if you assume that we received an incomplete quantity, the oil company will demand the remaining  quantity, and this can’t be circumvented.

* So in the process of investigating the black hole we are trying to track, we got the first leads .. Al-Eisy supplied a number of shipments. According to officials in the refinery, the quantities delivered by Al-Eisy were complete.

The refineries received these quantities and pumped them to the oil company, which in turn took over the past years the distribution responsibility of oil derivatives to the power plants.

The ball is in the court of the oil company in Aden .. It has to answer the important questions, and the first one is: “Was the company receiving the full amounts of fuel from the refineries of Aden and the electricity facility of Aden?

Does the oil company, in turn, deliver the complete quantity to the gas stations?

Two phases remain to reach the full answer.

A phase within the oil company.

And a last phase within the Electricity Corporation in Aden itself ..

Far from all this .. Does not the evidence of corruption in the file of Aden’s fuel electricity requires a transparent governmental investigation ?.

There are millions of dollars of money looted during the four years.

Does not it require a large-scale government investigation? or it will only remain a journalist attempt to reveal the truth.

We are waiting for the oil company response ..

Fathi Ben Lazraq

31 December 2018