More woes for Nigerian economy, as Minister confirms daily crude theft of 700,000 barrels

Chief Timipre Sylva, the minister of state for petroleum resources, revealed on Saturday that the nation loses at least 700,000 barrels of crude oil to thieves every day.

At the Petroleum Training Institute’s (PTI) 2002 graduation ceremony in Effurun, Delta State, he made this statement.
However, the minister, who was represented by Ambassador Gabriel Aduda, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, stated that the Federal Government is taking coordinated action to neutralise the threat.

He claimed that the theft of crude oil had a negative effect on the country’s influx of foreign currency.

“Oil theft has denied the country of an estimated 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The adverse effect of this is the drop in the production of crude oil and decline in the national income,’’ he said.

He declared that the National Assembly and the Ministry of Petroleum will work together to ensure that the PTI Act revision received the proper attention.

Sylva asserted that the institute could achieve more if the PTI Act were amended to provide it access to more funding.

He said that the ministry had instructed PTI to do research on a variety of topics, including the commercialization of gas and the use of locally available resources in crude oil extraction.
The minister advised the institute to use contemporary methods and ways to perform its tasks in view of how quickly global technology is developing.

Sylva also advised the institute to liaise with relevant parastatal agencies of government and local and international oil companies for the continued upgrade of relevant training curricular.

Earlier in the month, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) said it uncovered an illegal 4-kilometre (km) pipeline from Forcados terminal to the sea, and a loading port that had operated undetected in the last nine years.

Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO), NNPC Limited, made this known when he appeared before the Senate joint committees on petroleum (upstream and downstream), and gas.

He said the pipeline was found during a clampdown on theft.

“Oil theft in the country has been going on for over 22 years but the dimension and rate it assumed in recent times is unprecedented,” Kyari said.

“As a result of oil theft, Nigeria loses about 600,000 barrels per day, which is not healthy for the nation’s economy, and in particular, the legal operators in the field, which had led to a close down of some of their operational facilities.

“In the course of the clamp down within the last six weeks, 395 illegal refineries have been deactivated, 274 reservoirs destroyed, 1, 561 metal tanks destroyed, 49 trucks seized and the most striking of all is the four-kilometre illegal oil connection line from Forcados Terminal into the sea which had been in operation undetected for nine solid years.”