The 6 Division of the Nigeria Army, Port Harcourt, Rivers State has discovered 14 illegal crude oil reservoirs containing three million litres of crude oil and 49 boilers in the thick forest of Odagwa Etche in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The General-Officer Commanding 6 Division of the Nigeria Army, Port Harcourt, Major General Jamal Abdussalam, said the discovery was made by the officers of the division through credible intelligence.
Abdusalam said that the operators of the illegal reservoirs had about 49 crude oil boilers, where they refined stolen crude oil and moved it to different locations through various channels.
He said the suspects also constructed many tanks and used hoses and cables to connect crude oil from wellheads located within the area.
He said: “The idea of bringing you here is to let Nigerians know exactly what is happening. You can see that this place is in a deep forest even if you are using helicopters and military drones you will not be able to see what we actually saw here on the ground.
We have discovered many illegal activities. As you can see we have seen reservoirs that can contain upwards of 200000 litres of crude oil. We have discovered about 14 of them in this bush.
“We have also discovered boilers that are capable of processing crude oil about 49 of them all located inside this bush and we have seen the network of hoses and cables connected around the whole area.
“The crude oil we have discovered in this place is in excess of the daily crude oil export of Nigeria. This is very pathetic and very sad to note.
“Here we discovered 14 reservoirs and each reservoir stored a minimum of 200,000 litres of crude oil. So, simple mathematics will give you in excess of 3 million litres of crude oil that is stored. We are not talking of the ones that have been processed and taken out these are the ones that we have discovered”.
Abdusalam added: “This place is called Odagwa in Rivers State and inside this place, we have wellheads many of them we don’t know the exact number of wellheads around here.
“Most of them are not in use but you can see that it’s from these well heads that these people put their pipes to siphon this oil. Few arrests have been made however those that we have arrested are not the major players in this business they are just carriers of the stolen oil.
“People that just come and carry this oil are basically labourers the main players in this business have not been arrested but now that we have found this place with proper intelligence and investigation we are going to get them. This discovery is part of our efforts to ensure that government gets what is due to it.
“Our budget was planned based on some parameters and one of the parameters is the crude oil production we churn out every day. So, any drop in crude oil production affects everybody in this country. Our people are not aware of that and that is why they are involved in this type of business.”
Abdusalam warned persons involved in illegal crude oil business to repent and embrace legitimate business.
He warned that the Nigerian army would not fold its hands and watch the economic life wire of the country sabotaged by thieves.
