The National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno, on Tuesday projected that Nigeria may lose about $23 billion next year to oil theft if the current incidents of pipeline vandalism and other criminal activities in the hydrocarbon resources industry were not addressed.
Monguno made this projection during the inauguration of a special investigation panel set up by the Federal Government to checkmate crude oil theft in the country.
Speaking at the event, the NSA expressed serious concern about Nigeria’s inability to meet her oil quota of 2 million barrels per day by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as the nation’s daily production is just hovering around one million barrels over the past months.
While decrying the dwindling oil revenues of the government over the months, he charged members of the newly inaugurated committee to work towards combating the lingering oil theft syndrome to improve the nation’s foreign exchange earnings from the sector.
Sadly, over the past few years crude oil theft has become a major challenge for the Federal Government as its efforts to combat the menace had not really achieved much result, with the attendant huge losses of revenues to the country year-on-year.
It would be recalled that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) had last October announced that it uncovered an illegal 4-kilometre pipeline connected from Forcados Terminal that had been operating for about 9 years with estimated 600,000 barrels per day of crude oil loss to the country over the years.
The Group Managing Director of the company, Mele Kyari, had about two weeks ago, when he featured on a Channels Television programme, blamed government and security agents for the huge crude oil loss to the country.
Kyari assured then that the collaboration between the NNPCL and the security forces was yielding desired results in reducing oil theft in the Niger Delta region and help in improving Nigeria’s oil production output in the months ahead.
