Mallam Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, has decried the recent spike in oil theft in the nation and said that those responsible utilize technology to install pipes.
Speaking on Newsnight, a pre-recorded program on Channels Television, Kyari said that cooperation between criminals and government and security personnel allowed them to successfully steal the country’s crude oil.
The NNPC chairman noted that systemic cooperation has long assisted crude oil theft, but added that the authorities are unaware of the scope of such cooperation.
“You may construct pipelines and no one will notice it,” he added. “When you put technology into theft, and this is precisely what they did, and when there is a cooperation of individuals who shouldn’t be part of that activities.
If you have the skills, you can do it at night, and that’s what we believe finally happened.
Pipelines might be installed unintentionally to support inactive or abandoned assets.
People who are close to the assets, those who are using the assets, or those who are in charge of keeping them secure will all work together seamlessly.
“Anything may be eliminated.
You can complete any task once you have colleagues in the system.
Because we are unaware of the scope of the partnership, we were unaware.
The head of NNPC remarked that the government has increased measures to combat the plague of crude oil thefts as a way ahead.
He listed a few of the steps, including the fact that the government, supported by other stakeholders, is now fully in charge of the country’s oil infrastructure and is taking this problem head-on.
According to Kyari, the Federal Government has set up helicopters for round-the-clock monitoring to keep an eye on and safeguard pipelines.
With unfathomable amounts of oil being stolen by select cabals in the oil industry for years, oil theft has turned into a deadly disease in Nigeria. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited recently claimed to have discovered an illicit oil connection from Forcados Terminal that had been operating illegally for nine years and had lost roughly 600,000 barrels of oil per day during that time.
In a same vein, Government Ekpemepulo, also known as Tompolo, a former militant commander, said that since the operation to stop oil theft on the waterways of Delta and Bayelsa states began, over 58 illicit oil sites had been identified.
