The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has ordered the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva; the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari; and the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, to halt the worsening state of crude oil theft across the country.
Also, the Federal Government on Wednesday threatened oil pipeline vandals that their days were numbered as efforts would be intensified to stop their criminal activities.
Major industry players recently raised an alarm about the high rate of oil theft in the sector, which had prevented Nigeria from meeting its production quota as approved by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Last week, Nigeria’s billionaire businessman, Tony Elumelu, stated that the reason why the country had been unable to meet its oil production quota was not because of low investment but theft.
Nigeria’s oil production quota as approved by OPEC is pegged at about 1.8 million barrels per day but in the last few years the country has struggled between 1.3 and 1.4 million barrels per day.
Elumelu had said, “How can we be losing over 95 per cent of oil production to thieves? Look at the Bonny Terminal that should be receiving over 200,000 barrels of crude oil daily, instead it receives less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator @Shell to declare force majeure.”
Also, the former Chief Executive Officer of Seplat Energy Plc, Austin Avuru, stated last week that up to 80 per cent of oil pumped in Nigeria, particularly in the East, was stolen.
The Chief Executive, Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Gbenga Komolafe, in reaction to the concerns, had announced on Tuesday that a panel had been set up to audit the activities of oil companies in the last two years to ascertain the actual volume of crude oil stolen by vandals.
Speaking about the menace on Wednesday, Sylva also announced that the President had ordered him (Sylva), Kyari and Irabor to join forces to halt the huge oil theft in the sector and rescue the country from the activities of criminals.
The minister described insecurity as the biggest problem in Nigeria’s oil sector, while speaking during an on-the-spot assessment of some pipelines negatively impacted by the unwholesome activities of the criminals in Ibaa Community of Emeoha Local Government of Rivers State.
In a short video clip obtained from the NNPC, the minister was accompanied by Kyari, Irabor, Komolafe and other senior officials of the ministry and agencies, as well as security officers.
Sylva said, “The single biggest problem in our industry today is the problem of security. This has come to the attention of everyone including Mr. President.
“Mr. President has directed me and the CDS, as well as the GMD of the NNPC to ensure that this problem is handled once and for all.”
Sylva said three elements had been identified as basic solutions to the problem of crude theft and vowed that the solutions shall be implemented so as to halt the crime.
He said, “There are three elements to the solution of this problem. The communities must be involved because the people who are engaged in his illegal activities are not ghosts. They are from communities. So the communities have to be involved.
“You the security also must be involved because you are the law enforcement arm of government. And, of course, we as part of the government must be involved. And then the third arm is the operating companies.
“All the elements are complete now, we are here as government, the operating companies are here and, of course, we are going to the communities. So I believe that finally this problem will be resolved.”
The minister added, “We are actually determined to stop it because we know that we can ill-afford the continuation of insecurity in the oil industry. So I want to let everybody know that these criminals have their days numbered.
“We are here to ensure that this problem is finally resolved to reclaim this industry for the country. This country has lost so much from the activities of these criminals and the government can no longer afford these activities.”
The NNPC stated that members of Operation Delta Safe also accompanied the minister, Kyari, Irabor and Komolafe during the on-the-spot assessment exercise.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria says Nigeria’s inability to meet its oil production target is as a result of oil theft.
It said the activities of vandals had robbed the country of billions of naira in potential revenue.
The PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, stated this during a press conference held in Lagos on Wednesday.
Osifo said that for every act of vandalism suffered by its members, 10 days worth of production was lost. As a result, he called on the Federal Government to intensify efforts towards addressing the menace of oil theft in order to save the sector.
According to him, Nigeria boasts of capacity to produce up to two million barrels of oil per day, but is currently producing to the tune of 1.2 to 1.3 million due to the menace of oil theft.
He said, “The issues of crude oil theft have been exacerbated in recent times. This has made Nigeria lose out on accruing more revenue from the current high price of crude oil in the international market. We currently produce an average of 1.2 million to 1.3 million barrels of crude oil daily from a capacity of about two million barrels of crude oil per day.”
