Nigeria Crude OilMerchant
Reference

Crude oil trading glossary

Two vocabularies are used around Nigerian crude. One belongs to producers, refiners, banks and shipping companies. The other circulates almost entirely among internet intermediaries. Knowing which is which is one of the quickest ways to judge an offer.

Definitions of institutional terms reflect their use in the primary documents cited across this site — the NNPC tender and contract templates, the regulator's export rules and bank-industry principles.12345 Notes on broker jargon draw on warnings by the ICC, the FBI, the Port of Rotterdam and NNPC.6789

Institutional terms

API gravity
A measure of crude density: the higher the number, the lighter the oil. Defined from specific gravity at 60 °F. See the grade database.
Assay
A laboratory analysis of a crude stream — density, sulphur, acidity, metals and distillation yields — published by producers and used by refiners to value a grade.
Bill of lading (B/L)
The carrier's receipt for the cargo and document of title. Its date drives pricing and payment in most crude contracts. Nigerian bills of lading issued since mid-2025 must carry the regulator's UIN.
BS&W
Basic sediment and water: the non-oil content of a cargo, deducted in quantity determination.
Certificate of quantity and quality
In Nigeria, issued by the upstream regulator after loading from the terminal's measurement data.
CFR / CIF
Delivery terms under which the seller arranges carriage (CFR) or carriage and insurance (CIF). See FOB and CIF explained.
Dated Brent
The benchmark price for physical North Sea cargoes, against which Nigerian crude is priced. See pricing.
Demurrage
Compensation paid to the shipowner when loading or discharge exceeds the allowed laytime.
Differential
The premium or discount to the benchmark at which a grade trades.
Documentary letter of credit (DLC, LC)
A bank's undertaking to pay the seller against presentation of specified shipping documents; the standard payment instrument for crude cargoes, usually under the UCP 600 rules.
Equity crude
A producer's own share of production, which it is entitled to market and export.
FOB
Free on board: the buyer charters the vessel and risk passes at the loading port. The normal basis for Nigerian crude.
FPSO / FSO
Floating production, storage and offloading vessel / floating storage and offloading vessel — the export point for deepwater and several newer Nigerian grades. See terminals.
General terms and conditions (GT&Cs)
A seller's standard contract terms, to which a short deal recap is added for each sale.
KYC
Know your customer: the exchange of corporate, ownership and financial documents that precedes any serious transaction. See the buyer centre.
Laycan
The agreed window of days within which the vessel must arrive to load.
Laytime
The time allowed for loading or discharge before demurrage begins.
NOR (notice of readiness)
The vessel's formal notice that it has arrived and is ready to load or discharge, which starts the laytime clock.
Official selling price (OSP)
The monthly differential to Dated Brent set by NNPC for each grade.
Q88
A standard questionnaire describing a tanker's particulars, used for vetting. It describes a ship — it is not evidence that any cargo exists.
SBM / SPM
Single buoy (or point) mooring: the offshore loading buoy used at most Nigerian terminals.
SPA
Sale and purchase agreement: the contract between buyer and seller.
Standby letter of credit (SBLC)
A bank guarantee of payment, called on only if the buyer defaults. A genuine instrument when issued by a regulated bank to a named beneficiary; "leased" SBLCs offered by brokers are a documented fraud.
Term contract
An agreement to lift cargoes regularly over a period, typically a year, as opposed to a single spot cargo.
UIN
Unique Identification Number issued by Nigeria's upstream regulator for every export cargo since 2025. See compliance.

Broker-market jargon

None of the following terms appears in the Petroleum Industry Act, the regulator's export regulations or NNPC's tender and contract documents. Their presence in an offer is not proof of fraud, but it does tell you which market the offer comes from.

BLCO
Shorthand for Bonny Light crude oil. Harmless in itself, but used almost exclusively in broker-market offers; it does not appear in NNPC's tender or contract documents. See Bonny Light.
Allocation (as a saleable right)
In NNPC's documents an allocation is simply a cargo scheduled for an existing contract holder. The idea of an allocation that an individual can sell or "activate" has no basis in them. See how crude is sold.
Mandate / facilitator
A person claiming to represent a buyer or seller. A genuine representative can produce written authority from an identifiable principal. NNPC states that it does not deal through agents.
ATS, ATV, ATB
"Authority to sell", "authority to verify", "authority to board". Documents with these titles are not part of any Nigerian regulatory or NNPC procedure we have found.
ICPO
"Irrevocable corporate purchase order". Not used by producers, national oil companies or major traders. Templates typically ask for bank details and passport copies, which is how buyer identities are harvested.
SCO / FCO
"Soft" and "full corporate offer". Intermediary-market documents; established sellers issue a contract or deal recap, not an FCO.
NCNDA and IMFPA
Non-circumvention agreements and "master fee protection agreements", usually citing ICC rules that the ICC says do not exist. The ICC publishes one genuine model contract for occasional intermediaries.
POP / POF
"Proof of product" and "proof of funds". Real verification happens through banks, terminals and independent inspectors — not through emailed PDFs.
TTO, TTT, TTM
"Tanker take-over", "tanker-to-tanker" and "table-top meeting". Sources even disagree on what the abbreviations stand for. Oil-company fraud warnings identify meeting invitations as a pretext for fee requests.
Dip test
Physically gauging a storage tank. Genuine inspectors do this for their principals; terminals do not let unknown third parties test a customer's tank.
MT103, MT760, MT799
SWIFT message types: a customer payment, a guarantee or standby, and a free-format bank message. They exist only between banks on the SWIFT network. A PDF or screenshot of one proves nothing, and only your own bank can authenticate an incoming message.
OFF-OPEC crude
A marketing phrase implying that crude outside Nigeria's OPEC quota can be bought at a discount through private channels. NNPC listed offers of non-standard crude at above-market discounts among the marks of a scam.

Sources

  1. NNPC Ltd — General terms and conditions for the sale and purchase of Nigerian crude oil (Part II of the contract, 2021–2023) (published 2022; retrieved 18 September 2026) Official2021–2023 edition; the current edition has not been located.
  2. NNPC Ltd — Invitation to tender for the sale and purchase of Nigerian crude oil grades (term-contract template) (published 2022; retrieved 18 September 2026) OfficialTemplate from the 2021–2023 contract cycle. Thresholds for later cycles have not been located.
  3. Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission — Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Advance Cargo Declaration Regulations 2024 (S.I. No. 70 of 2024) (published 15 April 2024; retrieved 18 September 2026) RegulatoryGazette No. 65, Vol. 111. Listed on NUPRC's gazetted register with no amendment as at September 2026.
  4. Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission — Guidelines for the Operationalisation of the Advance Cargo Declaration Regulation (Version 1) (published 17 June 2025; retrieved 18 September 2026) Regulatory
  5. Wolfsberg Group, ICC and BAFT — Trade Finance Principles (2019 amendment) (published 2019; retrieved 18 September 2026) Industry
  6. International Chamber of Commerce — Beware of fraudulent documents mentioning ICC (retrieved 18 September 2026) Official
  7. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center — Public service announcement I-031819-PSA: fraudulent standby letters of credit and bank instruments (published 18 March 2019; retrieved 18 September 2026) Government
  8. Storage Spoofing working group (Port of Rotterdam, VOTOB, police) — Storage spoofing: blacklist, whitelist and guidance (retrieved 18 September 2026) OfficialThe whitelist is explicitly incomplete; absence from it does not imply suspicion.
  9. NNPC (statement by the Crude Oil Marketing Division, reported by Ripples Nigeria) — Public beware: scammers behind 98% of documents in crude oil marketing — NNPC (published 27 August 2017; retrieved 18 September 2026) Secondary sourceA 2017 statement by an NNPC official about documents circulating in the market — not an audited statistic.

Last reviewed 18 September 2026. Found an error? Tell us — see our methodology and corrections policy.