Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, has said they recorded 9000 infractions on oil pipelines in one year.
Kyari said this when the House of Representatives Special Committee on Oil Theft went on an oversight function at the headquarters of NNPCL headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to him, from 2022 to date, they had deactivated 6,465 illegal refineries.
He said they have also removed 4,876 illegal connections to pipelines out of 5,570 that were discovered.
“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 said the key issue has been security and that the NNPCL 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 the source of income, to non-state actors.
He said: “It is very obvious that despite all the integrity issues with our pipeline and our facilities, we have capacity beyond two million barrels per day without doing anything.
“But today, we are struggling to meet the budget estimate of 1.6 million barrels per day. This by no means is related to crude oil theft. The core issue that is affecting the other core issue is crude theft.
“No one will produce oil, knowing fully well that he cannot dispose of it, and that’s why no one is putting money into it.
“In 2022, it became so obvious that if something dramatic is not done, we are going to run into trouble. On a specific date, our production came down to as low as 1.1 million barrels per day,” he said.
The Chairman of the Special Committee, Hon Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, said it was established and common knowledge that operating oil and gas pipelines in Nigeria constituted a herculean challenge.
He said it was saddening that these infractions do not stop with the pipelines
He said the daily breaches are also recorded at the oil well heads, flow stations, loading, and export terminals, among others.
He said the opacity and non-transparency of regulatory activities at the crude oil export terminals were alarming.
He said: “We are compiling the facts and figures. Instances, where approvals are hastily granted to vessels involved in crude theft just to cover official complicity, are reported.
“Incidences of undeclared liftings are noted, and all these and several other infractions, particularly in our offshore marine environment, contribute to the huge volume of crude oil theft being reported.”
