The scary and scandalous revelation by Mr. Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited, that Nigeria loses a staggering sum of $1.9 billion monthly to crude oil theft puts a lot of question marks on how the oil-dependent economy is being administered.
Kyari expressed his concern when a delegation of an anti-oil theft team led by Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, visited the governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, at the government house, Asaba. He said Nigeria could not meet its OPEC’s quota of 1.99 million barrels per day with its current production level of 1.4 million barrels per day due to the activities of economic saboteurs.
But our concern stems from the fact that Kyari’s lamentation is coming after similar revelations have repeatedly been made, turning the scenario into a comedy of errors; almost becoming a vacuous cliché from a broken record. What preventive security mechanisms against oil theft have been deployed by our crude oil managers?
A few months ago, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, decried the recurring crude oil theft in the country. He warned that over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s revenue from crude oil sales was used to furnish interests accruing on debt and therefore, the nation might go bankrupt if the trend was not checked.
With patriotic concern he had asked the troubling questions: “Who is stealing the oil? Where is the money going? What do they want to do with the money? Who are the foreign nations buying this stolen oil? How many of these nations of the world are your friends?”
Similarly, Austin Avuru, founding MD/CEO of Seplat Energy and Executive Chairman AA Holdings, warned that Nigeria’s oil production had reached an emergency status. He stated that 80 per cent of production from some wells did not make it to the terminals due to oil theft. At a point, Nigeria’s oil revenue suffered further blow as 180,000 bpd Trans-Niger pipeline ran dry due to oil theft.
Also worried about the searing scenario, a leading geologist and publisher of Africa Oil and Gas Report, Toyin Akinosho, pointed to the fact that the bulk of crude being stolen implied that the cost of crude oil production remained unreasonably high.
We are, therefore, similarly concerned that no credible and convincing answers have been proffered by the authorities to the troubling questions regarding oil theft. Hence the thieving spree continues!
According to Gbenga Komolafe, the head of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigeria lost a staggering $1 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2022 due to crude oil theft. The theft of crude oil grew from 103,000 barrels per day in 2021 to about 108,000 barrels per day on the average in the first quarter of 2022.
It is saddening that Nigeria has not been able to reap maximum benefit from the rise in crude oil price occasioned by the Russia-Ukraine war. With the global oil price falling to $95 a barrel over plans to restore Iran nuclear deal, the Nigerian government must be held accountable for its inability to bring to book the perpetrators of the economic infamy, resulting in such a humongous loss to the public exchequer.
The Managing Director of Chevron Nigeria/Mid Africa Business Unit, Richard Kennedy, has described oil theft as an “organized crime”. The way out of the sleazy oil scam – the egregious economic sabotage – is to find out those behind the crime and bring them to a speedy justice.
SOURCE: Independent.ng