The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) limited, Mele Kyari, lamented Nigeria’s loss of $1.5 billion to crude oil thieves between January to March of 2022 .
He expressed this at a session with members of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) in Abuja .
He advocated the need for the establishment of special courts to handle cases of crude oil thefts, vandalism and operation of illegal refineries in the country.
Kyari also lamented the negative economy impacts of the ugly trend which he said is being handled by the joint effort of security agencies, as well as the NNPC and other industry players and regulators.
He added:”When you loss about 200,000 barely per day, even at an average price of 65 dollars per barrel, we lost close to 1 billion dollars between January and March. From January till date, we lost an average of 250,000 barrel per day and at the current price of about 100 dollars to the barrel, even within this short period, we have lost close to 1.5 billion dollars. This led to decline in production from the Bonny terminal. In January 2021″
Kyari said that the rise in the price of crude on the international market led to the increase in the rate of theft, just as he gave a timeline of one to two months within which the situation would have considerably been improved upon.
“No doubt it is a very difficult time and that’s why despite the good intentions of the PIA, no one will produce oil, recover zero and put money back into the business. And that’s why investments are very weak despite the good environment that the PIA has brought. I have answered questions and they asked you if you bring money, how are you are sure they will not steal the oil? It is very difficult to give a straight answer. But what we are doing now will bring sanity back.
“I can share with you. There is a massive activity going on by some government security agencies in collaboration with the industry, NNPC, two regulatory institutions and the Nigerian Army, Navy and Airforce and DSS with the collaboration of another agencies including NIMASA and others. They are all working together to contain this situation.
“All we need to do is to increase the advocacy so that the legal process takes its cause, prosecutions are done timely. I will recommend that we set up a special court for this. Such cases will be speedily dealt with, so that it is not just the ordinary ‘small’ people that you see at those locations that are prosecuted. We know that to sell crude oil in the international market, it is not the business of the ordinary people that you see in these illegal refineries. It is an elitist business and we must have the courage to set up very independent special courts to try cases related to this. Otherwise, the impact it has on our economic outlook – our ability to generate foreign exchange and in terms of energy security for this country – is threatened by a very few people.
“Clearly, they are a very few people. It is not beyond us and I am very confident that the leadership being given by the Chief of Defence Staff alongside the Service Chiefs and others will, probably in another one to two months, bring some sanity. We are also working on sustainability, not just recovery but to have a sustainable framework,” Kyari said.
