Stakeholders and groups have called for tougher measures to contain the massive oil theft in Nigeria, not only to eradicate the scourge but to bring perpetrators to justice.
Nigeria has consistently blamed massive oil theft, declining investment, and outright sabotage for its inability to meet 1.5 million barrels a day bpd OPEC quota.
This is as Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the country have explained why oil bunkering and oil theft persist in Nigeria, attributing it to corruption and the activities of state actors.
According to the CSOs, no country in the world is unserious about protecting its assets, but that Nigeria’s situation is different because powerful people in the government are involved.
It is well known that oil theft is shrinking Nigeria’s revenues terribly and the government has been urged to do something urgent about it.
Oil theft continues to thrive in Nigeria’s Niger Delta with allegations of community involvement, ranging from state actors, traditional rulers, youths and community leaders.
A survey of oil production for March carried out by S&P Global Commodity Insights found that Nigeria’s crude oil production declined marginally to 1.45 million barrels per day from the 1.47 million bpd the previous month.
Although output has generally increased this year, Nigeria’s Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production figures have been largely inconsistent.
Nigeria blames massive oil theft, declining investment in the oil and gas sector, and outright sabotage, among others, as reasons for its inability to meet its current revised 1.5 million bpd output, from 1.8 million bpd in 2023.
According to the S&P survey, the fall from 1.47 million bpd to 1.45 million bpd represented about a 0.02 percent decline.
But in all, OPEC+ crude output in March was up slightly month on month, as several producers continued to exceed their quotas, the Platts OPEC+ survey by S&P Global Commodity Insights hinted.
Overall, the group produced 41.25 million bpd of crude in March, up 40,000 bpd on February levels despite efforts made by Saudi Arabia to enforce compliance.
This included an 80,000-bpd increase in OPEC production to 26.66 million bpd, offset by a drop in output by its allies of 40,000 bpd. March was the third month of the group’s latest voluntary production cuts, which were supposed to take approximately 700,000 bpd off the market in the first quarter of 2024.
At the moment, some civil society groups will be launching a global campaign towards addressing sabotage in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
Speaking to our Correspondent, Mr Taiwo Adeleye, Mallam Lateef Abdulazeez and Fredrick Ojauka, in different conversations highlighted the need to deploy new technology to monitor oil fields and pipelines.
“We commend the Nigerian Navy for remarkable efforts to deal with oil theft and the determination to root out illegal refineries which have serious implications on domestic and corporation utility of petroleum products. Military troops deactivated 68 illegal refining sites in Niger Delta,” the coalition said.
The groups said they were impressed by the Navy that recovered 234,000 litres of stolen crude oil. Nigeria remains largely dependent on oil but exploration must take into consideration humanity in the context of environmental and livelihood security.
Adeleye on his part said, “We are however concerned about the future of oil, livelihood, and human security in Nigeria. What will Nigeria look like in the next 15 or 20 years? What immediate, short-term and long-term strategy do we have for oil security and national security? Will Nigerian oil installations continued to be protected by non-state actors? What is the mission of the state actors currently charged with the responsibility of protecting oil assets?”
Speaking on the immediate and remote causes of oil theft and pipeline vandalisation, the group chief executive officer (GCEO), Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, posited that most stakeholders were of the view that oil theft was essentially a social problem whose underlying causes include poverty in the communities, community-industry expectation mismatch and corruption.
Others, he noted, include: ineffective law enforcement, poor governance, poor prosecution of offenders, high unemployment in the communities, thriving illegal oil market involving both Nigerians and foreigners, and inadequate funding of resources to combat oil theft.
He lamented that NNPCL, as an operator, had suffered severe attacks on its facilities and assets, noting that between 2001 and half year 2019, NNPCL recorded a total of 45,347 pipeline breaks on its downstream pipeline network across the country.
Kyari said that for the Nigerian economy to prosper, NNPCL and other oil companies must be able to operate efficiently and profitably.
“Unfortunately, the combination of crude oil theft, illegal refining, and pipeline vandalism has become a major threat to Nigeria in meeting its revenue projections in recent times,” he said.
In his presentation, Edo State governor and chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC) Ad Hoc Committee on Crude Oil Theft, Prevention and Control, Godwin Obaseki, stressed the need to institute a proper governance structure for pipeline security in the industry.
Obaseki called on the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) to work with the NNPCL in identifying possible international markets and destinations of stolen Nigerian crude oil.
He said that the industry must end the prevailing incentives that make it possible for crude oil theft and pipeline vandalisation to flourish.
The governor disclosed that NEC had upgraded the Ad Hoc Committee on Crude Theft to a standing committee with the mandate to provide regular updates to NEC as may be required.
In March this year, Kyari said in one year it recorded 9000 infractions on its pipelines.
Kyari said this when the House of Representatives Special Committee on Oil Theft went on an oversight function at the headquarters of NNPC Ltd in Abuja.
“From 2022 to date, we have deactivated 6,465 illegal refineries. We have also removed 4,876 illegal connections to a pipeline out of 5,570 that we have discovered,” he said, adding that the NNPC was not sure if that was the actual number, and that it still had about a thousand that the corporation knew had not yet been removed.
“Some of the scale of the infraction that we see is unbelievable; we are not able to deal with it. When you remove one connection, the next day in the same location, someone will replace it.
“It is obvious that crude oil theft is almost an end-to-end issue in Nigeria; it is very obvious that everyone is involved.
“In most of these locations, they are less than a hundred metres from human settlements; some are even less than a hundred metres from the local government headquarters,” he said.
He said that notwithstanding the distance, these evils are being perpetrated unabated, adding that this makes it impossible to guarantee the production that would happen the next day.
Kyari stated that the NNPC moved to curtail the menace posed by pipeline vandals by incorporating all security agencies into a single platform, including private security outfits.
LEADERSHIP recalls that the NNPCL had appealed to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to help tackle the menace of crude oil theft in the country.
Kyari made the appeal at an interactive session with the EFCC’s helmsman, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, which held at the NNPCL towers, Abuja.
Speaking passionately about the efforts by NNPC Ltd to eradicate corruption from its system and stem crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, Kyari 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.
EFCC executive chairman Ola Olukoyede expressed satisfaction with NNPC Ltd’s commitment to issues of ethics and code of conduct.
However, security operatives, lawyers, activists, environmentalists, and other stakeholders of the Niger Delta have revealed that the actual stealing of the nation’s crude oil occurs at the various export terminals and flow stations in the country and not in the refining camps in the creeks.
Analysts have said that Nigeria knows it still has much work to do in terms of tackling crude oil theft.
Speaking in the same vein, Olarenwaju Suraju, executive director of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), said Nigeria can save over $200 billion yearly just by plugging all holes through which crude oil is stolen in the country.
Olarenwaju said the government needs to work with all stakeholders, from the media to security agencies, community-based organisations, and anti-graft groups, adding that funds recovered through stringent anti-corruption measures in the oil and gas sector would help pull the country back from economic doldrums.
“Nigeria is at a critical moment. People are passing through very difficult times. With a debt profile of over N77 trillion and an extremely poor debt service ratio, the country is in a quagmire,” he said.
“The surest way to recovery is to decisively fight corruption. Recovery of stolen funds and an end to graft in the oil sector will see Nigeria witness an upsurge in revenue to meet the needs of Nigerians who are at the end of the stick,” he said.
Only 16 Of Nigeria’s 36 Oil Terminals Metered
HEDA lamented that only 16 out of some 36 oil terminals in Nigeria are metered, making it difficult to monitor oil and gas production and distribution at local and international markets.
Also, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has drawn the attention of the Nigerian authorities to the fact that billions of dollars are lost to various rogue cartels in the oil and gas industry.
In countries like China the penalty for any form of economic sabotage against the state is death, but Nigerian CSOs said serious measures will not be taken against oil bunkering and oil theft because some state actors are involved.
The CSOs that spoke to LEADERSHIP are: The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Transparency International (TI) and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC).
Speaking through their leader, Awwal Musa Rafsanjani, they said it is a shame that oil bunkering appears to be negligence or compromise by state enforcement officers and that’s why it continues to happen.
“There is no country where you can see this level of unseriousness in tackling oil theft or oil bunkering. It’s all corruption and lack of responsible leaders.
“Some people in government appear to be benefitting; that’s why there is no decisive action despite the fact that Nigeria relies on oil revenue for survival.
“If you see other countries not up to the size of Nigeria, even in capacity or might, they don’t allow such to happen.
“It is a compromise to national security. The security forces have been given all the powers to stop oil bunkering, but it seems the responsibilities have not been carried out and we keep seeing occurrences on a daily basis without punishment. If they have been given responsibility to stop the act of looting in the name of oil bunkering, and nothing is done, their leaders should be sacked,” the CSOs said.
They, however, said the act seems to be state sponsored.
“So, oil bunkering, oil theft, or poor security in these areas are deliberate because they (state officials) are heavily benefiting from the oil bunkering to the detriment of the majority of Nigerians,” Rafsanjani added.