As part of the on-the-spot assessment of the level of success being recorded in the ongoing war against crude oil theft and vandalism in the Niger Delta, top officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, the European Union and security agencies have visited the region.
Led by the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Ltd, Malam Mele Kyari, the high-powered delegation was in the Delta creeks to see the extent of vandalism of oil and gas installations and ongoing illegal bunkering.
Persecondnews reports that the visit is the first official function that Kyari performed since his helmsmanship as GCEO of the new NNPC Ltd on Tuesday as unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Senior NNPC officials on the trip included the Group Executive Director (Upstream), Engr. Adokiye Tombomieye, Group Executive Director (Gas and Power), Abdulkadir Ahmed, and the Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), Mr Bala Wunti.
Others are the Manager Joint Venture Asset, Mr Mustapha Yusufu, Head Gas Facilities, Dr Obinna Otuu and the PTDT Upstream, Mr Olanrewaju Igadan.
They were accompanied by Admiral Aminu Hassan, the Commander Operations Delta Safe and other security chiefs.
The EU delegation include Mr Matthew Baldwin, Deputy Director General, EU Commission, Ms. Samuela Isopi, EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ms. Cecile Leemans, Team Leader, Southern Partnerships, EU Commission, Mr. Richard Young, Head of Division West Africa, EEAS and Mr Thomas Kieler, the Political Adviser, EU delegation to Nigeria.
Other members are Mr Jerome Riviere, Programme Manager, EU Delegation to Nigeria, Mr. Juan Sell, Ambassador of Spain to Nigeria, Mr. Tarek Chazli, Charge d’affairs Italy Embassy to Nigeria, and Mr. Luis Barros, Ambassador of Portugal to Nigeria.
Persecondnews also recalls that plans by the NNPC Ltd after about to reduce the cost of oil production to about $10 per barrel has been thwarted by crude theft and has raised production costs higher.
Crude theft described as organized crime and a national disaster, has cost Nigeria over $3.2 billion (about N1.56 trillion) loss between January 2021 and February 2022, according to the statistics presented at a meeting in Abuja between the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Oil Producers Trade Section, and the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG).
Between January and March 2022, Nigeria lost about $1billion to the menace.
This has forced the country’s crude oil production to go down below the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota and the benchmark set for the 2022 budget.
Early this year, Mr Tony Elumelu, who owns huge stakes in Tenoil, had raised alarm: “Businesses are suffering. How can we be losing over 95 per cent of oil production to thieves? Look at the Bonny Terminal that should be receiving over 200,000 barrels of crude oil daily, instead it receives less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator, Shell to declare force majeure, which has taken a toll on their businesses.
“Why are we paying taxes if our security agencies can’t stop this? It is clear that the reason Nigeria is unable to meet its OPEC production quota is not because of low investment but because of theft, pure and simple!”
Also, the founding Managing Director of Seplat Petroleum, Mr Austin Avuru, had in a report warned that oil production in Nigeria is “now in an emergency, critical state, due to oil theft.’’
With the scale of theft of crude, new foreign investments in the oil and gas industry and the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act are being hampered.
In May 2022, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, from Bayelsa, the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabo and Kyari had embarked on a similar impact assessment of the damage done by the vandals.
NNPC Ltd Management and EU Delegation
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