Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, the executive governor of Kaduna State, has sl@mmed the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) for thre@tening to sue the President Muhammadu Buhari’s led administration over the discovery of illegal oil pipelines.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) last week said it uncovered an illegal 4-kilometre (km) pipeline from Forcados terminal to the sea, and a loading port that had operated undetected in the last nine years.
Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO), NNPC Limited, said this on Tuesday when he appeared before the senate joint committees on petroleum (upstream and downstream), and gas.
According to him, “Oil theft in the country has been going on for over 22 years but the dimension and rate it assumed in recent times is unprecedented. The Brass, Forcados, and the Bonny terminals, are all practically doing zero production today; the combined effect is that you have lost 600,000 barrels per day when you do a reality test.
As a result of oil theft, Nigeria loses about 600,000 barrels per day, which is not healthy for the nation’s economy, and in particular, the legal operators in the field, which had led to a close down of some of their operational facilities.
But in rising to the highly disturbing challenge, NNPCL has in recent times in collaboration with relevant security agencies, clamped down on the economic saboteurs.
In the course of the clamp down within the last six weeks, 395 illegal refineries have been deactivated, 274 reservoirs destroyed, 1, 561 metal tanks destr@yed, 49 trucks seized and the most striking of all is the four-kilometre illegal oil connection line from Forcados Terminal into the sea which had been in operation undetected for nine solid years.”
