BY ONYEKA AJUMOBI ONOCHIE
The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, has revealed how Nigeria lost 2.9 million barrels of crude oil estimated at $48.42 million to oil thieves and vandals between January and February 2020.
Following this, the GMD said the Federal Government is putting up functional security measures to control the trend in the oil producing areas with a view to bringing it to an end.
Kyari who revealed this at a WEBINAR with Energy Journalists on Thursday noted that specifically, 74 crude oil pipeline breaches were recorded from January to February 2020, adding that from January to September 2019, about 11.5 million barrels of crude oil, worth $747.50million, were also lost to illegal activities of vandals and thieves. According to him, the loss recorded in 2019 was 5% of the total Joint Venture production.
In another scenario, the GMD regretted that the corporation also lost 56.8 million litres of petroleum products valued at N7 billion to the unwholesome activities of pipeline vandalism between January and April, 2020.
Pursuant to this, he said the NNPC has expedited its efforts to further secure the pipeline network against vandalism and theft, noting that System 2B and the destination depots along the South-West distribution corridor have been made more than ever before active.
“Persistent vandalism and product theft has forced the shutdown of Aba-Enugu segment of system 2E,” he regretted, stressing that the corporation had demolished illegal structures used by petrol thieves with the support of the Navy.
He also said that from January to December 2019, pipeline vandals and criminal elements operating along system 2B axis had stolen about 291.2 million litres of petroleum products valued at N38.18bn, in addition to economic scale damage to pipeline infrastructure and the environment.
Besides the theft, he regretted that the resultant fire incidents spewed by the saboteurs had also recorded fatalities in the host communities between January and December, 2019.