The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has reported that Nigeria recorded 164 crude oil theft incidents between August 19 and 25, 2023.
The company, which made this disclosure during its weekly “Energy and You” series aired on the NTA News Network, indicated that in the period under review, it recorded a total of 41 instances of illegal connections, 49 cases of unauthorized refineries, and 18 incidents of pipeline vandalism.
Other incidents reported were 37 occurrences of wooden boats being employed for transporting stolen crude, 12 violations of vessels’ AIS protocols, 4 vehicle-related apprehensions, and the identification of 3 oil spills recorded during the specified timeframe in Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, and Ondo states
According to the report, various tactics are employed by crude thieves to aid their illegal activities, including connecting pipelines to their storage tanks and manipulating valves which granted them the ability to control the oil supply at their convenience.
The company further clarified that out of the recorded incidents, 12 were documented in the Deep Blue Water region, 22 occurred in the Western region, 79 transpired in the Central region, and an additional 51 were registered in the Eastern region within the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta.
It would be recalled that a few days ago, the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, disclosed that the country was still losing about 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily to local and international thieves despite efforts to end the menace.
Ribadu explained that currently the country can produce 2 million barrels of crude daily (mbpd) but was producing less than 1.6 million barrels due to theft and vandalism of pipelines.
Using the current international oil price to assess the huge losses Nigeria is suffering from the oil thefts, the NSA noted that the value of 400,000 barrels of oil today hovers around $4 million which implies that every year, Nigeria was losing billions of dollars to crude oil theft.
The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) had also reported in April this year that between 2009 and 2020, Nigeria lost N16.25 trillion to crude oil theft.
