- Laments Activities Of Vandals
Nigeria currently loses $1.9 billion monthly due to the activities of oil vandals, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari has disclosed.
Kyari who spoke in Asaba during a visit to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa
by Federal Government delegation to Delta State admitted that the challenge of oil-theft was huge, given the level it had assumed.
He lamented that as a country, it hardly meet its OPEC production quantum of 1.99 million barrels per day with the current production level of 1.4 million barrels per day which is currently being threatened by the activities of economic saboteurs.
He said: “This has done extensive damage to the environment and losing 1.9 billion dollars every month is colossal, considering the nature of the global economy at the moment.”
Kyari reinstated that the team needed the support and buy-in of Delta Government because stopping the oil theft requires the concerted efforts of the Federal, State Governments, oil companies and security agencies.”
Governor Okowa pointed out that it was often difficult to secure oil facilities, especially when the persons given the contracts did not have adequate information on the environment or not have the buy-in of host communities.
“We know that the impact of the nefarious activities on the health of the people cannot be immediately ascertained, and this collaboration is, therefore, very imperative.
“Any measure that will deliberately reduce the level of oil thefts is definitely worth supporting, and as a state government, we pledge our continued support.
“Why investment of the communities is needed is because there are some parts of the creeks that cannot be accessed by the surveillance contractor. Therefore, surveillance contracts should not be such that communities are not involved.
“The surveillance contracts should be tied to performance such that when there are oil thefts you terminate the contract and it is always good that communities are involved because they know the environment better,” he said.
Okowa flayed the oil companies for not keeping faith with their Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs), thereby making the stakeholders to lose confidence in the system.
He explained that when oil companies failed to sign or implement MOUs, “it becomes very difficult for the state government to mediate when there are issues.
“The security agencies must heighten their operations and they need to be resourced to enable them to also increase their level of surveillance and for this to succeed, there must be sincerity on the part of all stakeholders.”
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Timipriye Sylva who led the delegation told the governor that the team was in Asaba to seek the support and buy-in of the state government on measures to be adopted to check oil-theft, saying “as a country we cannot sustain this kind of theft perpetually.”
He said that oil theft had become a national emergency, especially as the nation had not been able to meet its Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production quota.
“Our production has dropped drastically to very unsustainable levels; so, we have decided to take the bull by the horn by putting some structures in place and those structures cannot function effectively without the collaboration of the state government,” the minister said.
Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, who is coordinating the security intervention against oil theft, disclosed that in the last five months security agencies had been dealing with issues of illegal refineries and oil bunkering across the Niger Delta.
Gen. Irabor called for the engagement of indigenes and host communities in the fight against the criminal activity.
