Business

N16.5trn lost to oil thefts in 11 years – Speaker

…Berates NNPC, NUPRC, NIMASA, others for shunning probe

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas yesterday lamented that Nigeria lost about $46 billion (N16.25 trillion) to crude oil thefts between 2009 and 2020.

He said this while inaugurating the ad hoc committee set up to investigate crude oil thefts and loss of revenue in the country.

The speaker who was represented by the immediate past Majority Leader of the House, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, said Nigeria loses between 5 to 30 percent of daily crude oil production because of oil theft.

He, however berated the Chief Executives of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited; the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) a well as the Minister of State for Petroleum (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri; the Director General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Bashir Jamoh; the EFCC and other stakeholders for failing to appear before the panel.

He said in view of the importance attached to the probe, the House will not hesitate to invoke its legislative powers to cause the appearance of any government official or MDA that fails to honour invitation to the hearing.

“Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI report shows that 619 million barrels of crude valued at $46 billion were stolen in the period 2009-2020. Nigeria has continually failed to meet its daily production quota as set by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

“Recently, Nigeria’s OPEC quota was reduced from 1.742 million barrels per day to 1.38 million barrels per day. Yet, the country is still struggling to meet this quota as daily production output was 1.184 million barrels per day and 1.249 million barrels per day in May and June 2023 respectively,” he said.

The chairman of the adhoc committee, Kabiru Alhassan Rurum (Kano, NNPP) who frowned at the absence of critical stakeholders at the hearing, said the panel was determined to unravel those behind crude oil thefts in the country.

Representatives of the Nigerian Army, Navy, police, Airforce and other security agencies made presentations on the factors fuelling oil thefts in the country and how to tackle the menace.