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Crude theft: Sustainable solution in sight as industry, govt, security agencies collaborate – Shell boss

There is light at the end of the tunnel as hope rises for an end to crude theft in Nigeria following the renewed collaboration among oil industry operators led by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the government and security agencies.

It is expected that oil production and export from Nigeria will begin to increase sustainably in the near future as a result of this collaboration.

Fielding questions on the current state of oil theft from The Business Intelligence Africa magazine (TBI Africa) at an event in Lagos, the Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited (SPDC) and Chairman of Shell Companies in Nigeria, Mr. Osagie Okunbor, told our correspondent that he has more confidence in the current arrangement than before and hopes things work out as planned.

According to him, Nigeria’s oil industry will recover and he prays the recovery would be sustainable and the industry never degenerates again to where it is coming from.

He said: “There is hope. We are not folding our hands. We in the industry are working actively and in very close collaboration with the NNPC and other agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the security forces. You have heard of the recent pipeline security infrastructure that the NNPC has rolled out. On our own part, we are working very hard to be on our right of way.

“The security agencies have been quite supportive. I feel more confident now that at some point in near future, we will recover, and it is not just recovery, it is the sustainability of that recovery to make sure we never go back to the days of old. But every effort is being made both as an industry and by government to address these issues.”

There have been reports of how major illegal pipelines are being busted recently. These are pipelines through which unknown cabal siphon hundreds of thousands of crude daily without being caught despite the array of security formations in the country.

SPDC had last week announced planned resumption of export operation from its Trans Forcados Pipeline by the end of this month when ongoing essential repairs would have been completed. In a statement by SPDC’s Media Relations Manager, Abimbola Essien-Nelson, the oil giant stated that in addition to the repairs, it would remove and clamp theft points on the onshore pipelines to ensure full crude receipt at the terminal.

Essien-Nelson said: “The active illegal connections to SPDC joint venture’s production lines and facilities in western Niger Delta as well as the inactive illegal connection to the onshore section of the 48” Forcados export line are in the company’s ongoing programme to remove illegal connections on the pipelines that feed the terminal.

“SPDC gives priority to to the removal of active illegal connections and to illegal connection points that have leaks. This scheduled programme is continuous as new illegal connections are identified during surveillance of the pipelines.”

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