Oil theft still massive in Nigeria, says NNPC Chief
Mr Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ltd., says the level of oil theft in the country remains a huge concern despite efforts to contain it.
Kyari said no fewer than 9000 infractions on NNPC pipelines were recorded in one year, while 6,465 illegal refineries were deactivated from 2022 to date.
The GMD said this on Wednesday in Abuja, when the House of Representatives Special Committee on Oil Theft went on an oversight function to the headquarters of the NNPC Ltd.
He added that 4,876 illegal connections to pipelines were removed out of the 5,570 discovered.
According to him, 1,000 others identified by the company have not been deactivated.
“Some of the scale of the infraction that we see is unbelievable. We are not able to deal with it. When you remove one connection, the next day in the same location, someone will replace it.
“It is obvious that crude oil theft is almost an end-to-end issue in Nigeria; it is very obvious that everyone is involved.
“In most of these locations, they are less than a hundred meters from the settlement, some are even less than a hundred meters from the local government headquarters”, he said.
He noted that notwithstanding the distance, the evils were being perpetrated unabated, noting that this had made it impossible to guarantee the production that would happen the next day.
He said that the key issue had been security, and disclosed that the NNPC had moved to curtail the menace of pipeline vandals by incorporating all security agencies into a single platform, including private security.
According to him, no country surrenders the protection of such critical assets, which are our source of income, to non-state actors.
Earlier, Chairman of the Special Committee, Rep. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, said it was common knowledge that operating oil and gas pipelines in Nigeria was a herculean task.
“Not a week or even a few days go by without an infraction or damage to an oil or gas pipeline in the country.
“It is also saddening that these infractions do not stop with the pipelines, daily breaches are also recorded at the oil well heads, flow stations, loading, and export terminals, among others”, he said.
Doguwa said that the opaque and non-transparent nature of regulatory authorities was also a source of concern.
“We are compiling the facts and figures, instances where approvals are hastily granted to vessels involved in crude theft just to cover official complicity.
“Incidences of undeclared liftings and several other infractions particularly in our offshore marine environment, contribute to the huge volume of crude oil theft being reported”, Doguwa added.
