‘221 cases of oil theft recovered in one week’

No fewer than 221 cases of oil theft were uncovered across various communities of the Niger Delta region in the past week, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company has said.

According to the NNPC, the incidents, including illegal refineries, illegal connections, pipeline vandalism, and others, were recorded between July 6 and 12.

It noted that the incidents were recorded across several locations in the Niger Delta region from several incident sources: Tantita Security Agency, Shell Petroleum Development Company, Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Limited, Maton Engineering Nigeria Limited, Nigerian Agip Oil Company, and NNPC Limited Command and Control Centre, as well as government security agencies.

In a video released by the NNPC, 94 illegal connections were discovered across several locations.

About 94 illegal pipelines were reportedly discovered in Rivers State and other states in the region.

In Bayelsa State, an illegal connection was found on the Agip pipeline and was removed with further repairs undertaken, the state energy company noted.

NNPC disclosed that the destruction of 39 illegal refineries took place in Rivers and Bayelsa, while several illegal storage sites were said to have been uncovered across different communities in Rivers, Imo and Abia States.

It revealed that oil spills were discovered in communities in Bayelsa and Rivers States, owing to the activities of vandals.

On land, vehicles loaded with stolen crude oil were intercepted in the Rivers and Delta States.

Similarly, on the water, wooden boats conveying stolen crude oil were confiscated in Bayelsa, Delta and Abia.

The incidents, it was learnt, occurred across various corridors: 125 in the central corridor, 57 in the eastern corridor, 24 in the western corridor, and 15 in deep blue water.

According to NNPC, in total, 14 suspects were arrested during the one week.

It noted that there was no backing down on the war on crude oil theft until the menace was eradicated.

It added that the war against illegal oil theft and the security collaboration on hydrocarbon infrastructure had continued to record remarkable progress.

The PUNCH reports that the Federal Government and the NNPC said they were more determined to end oil theft, which has robbed the nation of its oil benefits, discouraging further investments in the region.

Oil theft has been blamed for the dwindling oil production, preventing the nation from achieving its two million barrels per day target.

The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Dr Ogbonnaya Orji, said, “Figures contained in our 2009 to 2020 audits have put Nigeria’s losses to crude oil theft over 12 years at 619.7 million barrels valued at $46.16bn or N16.25tn.

“Similarly, between 2009 and 2018, the country also lost 4.2 billion litres of petroleum products from refineries valued at $1.84bn.”

He added that those losses and their attendant negative effects on the economy made the previous administration set up a special panel on oil theft/losses to study the situation.