The Jascon-4 was owned by West African Ventures, a company owned by Sea Trucks Group, and was operating under contract to Chevron. On the night of May 25 and into the early morning hours of May 26, 2013, it was engaged in a static tow — holding a tanker in position while the tanker was loaded at a mooring near a Chevron platform. The platform was located approximately 30 kilometers, or roughly 20 miles, off the Nigerian coast near Escravos, in the oil-rich Delta region.
The crew that night numbered twelve: eleven Nigerians and one Ukrainian captain. The national composition of the crew reflected the standard demographics of Nigeria’s offshore oil service industry, in which the upper command roles frequently belong to foreign nationals while the working crew is predominantly Nigerian. Okene, as ship’s cook, occupied one of the lower-status roles in the vessel’s hierarchy — a position that, on the night of May 26, would turn out to be life-saving in the specific and unpredictable way that position affects survival.
The crew, per later reporting, was asleep in locked cabins. The practice of locking cabin doors in the Nigeria offshore environment is a security measure, adopted in response to the threat of piracy that has long characterized West African offshore waters. Nigeria’s Gulf of Guinea has been, for decades, one of the world’s most active areas for maritime piracy and armed robbery against vessels. Crews lock themselves in as protection against boarding and armed attack. It is a rational response to a documented threat.