The Federal Government said it spent over $1.5bn, protecting the nation’s oil installations and curb crude oil theft from 2020 to date.
The Secretary of the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume disclosed the information during a public hearing of the House of Representatives on crude oil theft.
Akume, represented by the Permanent Secretary, General Services, Maurice Nandi said the Federal Government was worried about the report of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
The report revealed that over $46bn worth of stolen crude was recorded between 2009 and 2020.
“The House had set up a special committee, headed by the Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Upstream, Ado Doguwa, to investigate the losses in the oil and gas sector,” Akume said.
On his part, the Speaker of the House Tajudeen Abbas, represented by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, said $10bn has been lost in seven months to crude oil theft, and no magic can remedy such a loss.
Similarly, the Nigerian senate has vowed to expose saboteurs in the petroleum sector, particularly those responsible for the importation of toxic fuel into the country.
The ‘Senate Ad-Hoc Committee to Investigate the Alleged Economic Sabotage in the Nigerian Petroleum Industry’ disclosed this during a press conference also on Thursday.
The Chairman of the Ad-Hoc Committee, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele while speaking at the conference said the panel has taken the task of addressing the fundamental issues that pose grave threats to the nation’s economic prosperity, fiscal stability, and public health.
Bamidele who is also the Majority Leader of the Senate, said, “In line with our mandate, we will definitely unravel the roots of economic sabotage in Nigeria’s petroleum industry and make necessary recommendations that will entrench global best practices in the industry and open it up for more investments, especially in the midstream and downstream sectors.
“We are utterly committed to this mandate. We shall also carry out this national assignment without fear or favour. We shall be fair and just to all parties with a view to promoting and protecting the strategic national interests of our fatherland.”
The meeting is coming a few days after the Defence Headquarters said is taking a stringent approach towards ending crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region of the country, and part of such measures is to ensure the transparency of the International Oil Companies (IOC) operating in the region.
The military high command had in a statement signed by the Director, Defence Media operations, Maj.-Gen. Edward Buba noted that the military was reviewing its operations, taking on a comprehensive and unified command structure for all security agencies in the region.
Buba said that part of this approach would include enforcing and ensuring transparency by IOCs and the integrity of the metering systems deployed at flow stations.
“Operations Will also embark on the tracking of the point of loading to the destination point of the crude oil,” Buba noted, stating plans to “concentrate on surveillance of the pipelines, jackets and wellhead to forestall breaches.”
Buba said such “operations would galvanise the support of the people of the Niger Delta as well as the stakeholders in the oil sector to support the drive to boost the nation’s oil production. Importantly, operations will ensure prosecution of culprits engaged in crude oil theft.”
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, had last Tuesday said that President Bola Tinubu has intensified the war against crude oil theft in the nation’s oil-producing region.
Kyari had disclosed this to journalists at the Defence Headquarters, after a meeting with heads of security and intelligence agencies, convened by the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Christopher Musa.
The GCEO noted that the engagement with the CDS and other security agencies was at the directive of the president, who had issued a marching order to control the crisis in the Niger Delta operational area.
The Niger Delta region is being challenged by the menace of crude oil theft, vandalism and illegal refineries, thereby placing the country at a disadvantage with an estimated loss of 100,000 to 120,000 barrels daily.
In the last nine years, the nation lost $1.84bn worth of petroleum products from illegal refineries, the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Dr Ogbonnaya Orji, had said on Monday.