Rivers NSCDC busts nine stolen crude oil refiners extracted from vandalized oil wellheads

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) says it has apprehended nine people involved in crude oil theft at an illegal refinery located on the boundary between Rivers and Abia States.

The NSCDC Public Relations Officer, Babawale Afolabi, revealed this in a statement on Monday in Abuja.

This operation followed the NSCDC’s discovery of another illegal refining site on Saturday with over 100,000 litres of stolen crude oil in Adobi settlement, Etche Local Government Area, Rivers State.

Afolabi stated that the suspects’ interrogation is ongoing, and they will be charged in court upon completion of the investigation.

According to the NSCDC spokesman, the apprehended suspects, ages 20–53, were allegedly caught in the act of refining stolen crude oil extracted from a vandalized oil wellhead.

He said: “We apprehended nine suspects caught in the act of illegally refining stolen crude extracted from a vandalised oil wellhead.

“We also discovered the ongoing construction of a local refinery with the capacity to produce 60,000 litres of crude at once.”

The illegal site has extensive infrastructure, with large hoses and galvanized metal pipes used to transfer stolen crude oil across various processing channels.

According to Afolabi, the site also housed a local refinery under construction, designed to produce 60,000 litres of crude oil at a time.

Exhibits recovered are RWD 5.0 GFE-6500 power generating set, two yellow-coloured pumping machines, metal and plastic buckets, cutlasses, saws, mats, welding machines, galvanized metal pipes, different heavy-duty hoses, and automotive gas oil illegally processed in cooking ovens.