The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) said there are still 697 illegal pipes through which crude oil is stolen in the Niger Delta region.
The 697 illegal pipes are the remnants of the 5,543 illegal connection points out of which 4,846 have been disconnected according to the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari at an interactive session with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) during which he sought help tackle the menace of crude oil theft in the country.
Kyari said the company had successfully deactivated 6,409 illegal refineries in the region as he spoke passionately about the efforts by NNPC Ltd to eradicate corruption from its system and stem crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism.
The NNPC had reported that crude oil thefts in 2021 reached 200,000 barrels per day – a quarter of the total onshore production and which the upstream regulator, the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) valued at $3.27 billion.
The NNPCL Boss contended that going by the volume of oil stolen daily and the brazenness with which the perpetrators operate, crude oil theft was the most humongous and virulent economic crime in Nigeria that must attract the attention of the EFCC.
“As we continue to do our best to deepen transparency and stamp out corruption from the system, there is one big challenge that you will need to help us with, Mr. Chairman. That challenge is crude theft. It fits into everything you have said – the people, the asset, the opportunity, and the absence of deterrence.”
“We have deactivated 6,409 illegal refineries in the Niger Delta region. Today, we have disconnected up to 4,846 illegal pipes connected to our pipelines, out of 5,543 such illegal connection points. That means there are a vast number of such connections that we have not removed.
“These things don’t just happen from the blues. They happen in communities and locations we all know. As we remove one illegal connection, another one comes up. It is sad, Mr. Chairman.”
“This kind of thing does not happen anywhere else in the world. When we say illegal connections, they are not invisible things, they are big pipes that require some level of expertise to be installed. Some of them are of the same size as the trunk line itself. No one would produce crude oil knowing fully well that it is not going to get to the terminal. That is why nobody is putting money into the business. So, you can’t grow production.”
“I believe, personally, that the very purpose of your commission is to curtail economic crimes, and there is no bigger economic crime of this scale anywhere else than what is happening in this area,” the GCEO lamented.
On corruption within the system, Kyari explained that by law, NNPC Ltd is required to maintain high ethical standards and has put in place structures and measures to curb discretionary actions which fuel corruption, stressing that most processes in the company have been fully automated to discourage arbitrary actions. He disclosed that many issues of corruption reported in the public were either not true or recycled from the past.
Executive Chairman of EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, expressed satisfaction with NNPC Ltd.’s commitment to issues of ethics and code of conduct and challenged the management to ensure that the codes of ethics and regulations are complemented with monitoring and enforcement to enhance deterrence.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, in early January, said it recorded 112 incidents of crude oil theft on December 23, 2023, and December 29, 2023, and arrested 18 suspects in the Niger Delta according to a documentary obtained from its X handle.
It detailed that 42 illegal refineries were discovered in Konsho and Tebidaba in Bayelsa state; Obokofia in Imo state; Ogidigben, Mereje and Obodo Omadina, in Delta state and also in Umuire, Abi state, and Upata in Rivers state.
In addition, 14 illegal connections were uncovered in several parts of the Niger Delta, while in Owaza, Abia state, a tunnel covering an illegal connection was also uncovered while 10 cases of vandalism were discovered.
Illegal storage sites were also discovered in Ebocha while oil pits were found in Ton Kiri in Rivers state. In Ogbia, Bayelsa state, sacks of crude oil were discovered, and several illegal storage sites were uncovered in Urhonigbe, in Edo state; Ekuku-Agbor and Bomadi in Delta state.
The company also noted that eight of these incidents took place in the deep water, 46 in the eastern region and 32 in the central region, while 26 took place in the western region.
A 2021 Wood Mackenzie report noted the rampant crude oil theft in the Niger Delta limited Nigeria’s ability to meet its OPE+ quota. Average production was at 1.3m bpd in 2021 and Nigeria’s quota was raised in March to 1.72 million b/d but Nigeria is unlikely to help global supply crunch,” the report said.
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