Ending crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, according to President Muhammadu Buhari, is still essential for the country’s oil and gas industry to develop.
This was said by Buhari while speaking to Joint Task Force Operation Delta Safe in Effurum, Delta State, and Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in his capacity as the State Minister for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva.
Vandals and criminals are laughing all the way to the bank by breaking into oil pipelines as Nigeria writhes under a mountain of debt and shrinking revenues, which are mostly caused by a drastic fall in oil production capacity.
According to Buhari, pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft must not be condoned because criminal activity has recently disrupted crude oil output. He also urged the security agencies to put an end to these crimes.
“Mr President has mandated us to eradicate crude oil theft. He has directed that no litre of crude oil should be stolen in the country again especially in the South South. He wants crude oil thieves completely eliminated by May 29, 2023 as one of the legacies of his government. This is the message from Mr President. We are not where we want to be, but we are happy at what we are seeing,” he said.
The nation’s daily crude oil production was around 900,000 barrels per day before the Federal Government stepped up its efforts to combat the threat of oil thieves, but the stepped-up security measures taken by the Federal Government have helped to support production, which is now around 1.5 million barrels per day.
“I am happy to hear that morale is high here. We were here a few months ago to hand over the mandate of Mr President to you and that is to ensure that there is zero tolerance for crude oil thieves in the region. We want to thank you for what you have done so far but there is still more to be done for us to achieve 100 per cent.”
“Nigerians have noticed what you are doing, the managers in the oil industry have noticed what you are doing and indeed the international community have noticed what you are doing. We are happy at the improvement we are seeing in the oil and gas sector. We have seen significant improvement and that’s why we are here on the mandate of the president to thank you for what you are doing. He has said there should be no reason why we (Nigeria) should be losing an essential commodity that is the life wire of the country.”
“We are here to ask you to redouble your efforts so that we will be able to tell Nigerians and the President that we have zero tolerance for crude oil thieves,” the minister stated.
He noted that the situation was quite troubling when the delegation visited the area around three months ago under the authority of President Muhammadu Buhari.
He Said: “today, we have seen a significant change in the whole thing and we are happy about it. We want to return in another few months to show Nigerians that we have successfully tackled the problem of oil thief and pipeline vandalization in the country”.
The Federation Government has established a special court to speed the trials of criminal elements implicated in oil theft and pipeline damage in the Niger Delta region, according to Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer of NNPC Limited.
Kyari said he was certain that full confidence will be restored in crude oil production in the shortest amount of time and thanked the troops for the good work they were doing to restore confidence in the pipelines.
