The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd), Mele Kyari, has sought the aid of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), and other stakeholders in the oil and gas sector to fight crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region.
Kyari said this on Tuesday at the 5th quadrennial delegates’ conference in Asaba, Delta State.
The theme of the conference was, “Just Energy Transition: For oil and gas workers’ social welfare and security.”
The theft of crude oil has been harming the revenue of the Federal Government and has been denying the country the much-needed fund to boost economic development.
Apart from revenue loss, the issue of oil theft is currently jeopardizing not just the NNPC Ltd’s quest for energy security for the country, it is also having a debilitating effect on Nigeria’s revenue earnings.
A report released last month during a meeting on crude oil theft between the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission and Oil Producers Trade Section, as well as the Independent Petroleum Producers Group, showed that between January 2021 and February 2022, Nigeria lost $3.2bn to crude oil theft.
The report revealed that oil theft rose significantly between 2021 and 2022, with over 90 per cent of total crude produced at the Bonny Terminal stolen in January 2022.
Speaking on the recent development, the NNPC Ltd. GMD told participants at the NUPENG conference that the effect of pipeline vandalism had lessened the capacity of the country to meet its oil production quota.
He noted that currently, Nigeria was producing less than 1.5 million barrels per day of crude oil.
Kyari beseeched major stakeholders in the oil and gas business, that the time had come for NUPENG and NARTO to collaborate with the NNPC in bringing the issue of crude oil theft to an end.
He said, “You can see the trouble that we have and what it has caused all of us. But more than these comrades, our local industry is challenged and you may be aware, we have seen vandalism around our areas of operations, not just in the Niger Delta but across other corridors of product supply.
“Activities of oil thieves have got to a level that we haven’t seen before, almost bringing down this industry to its knees today.”
