The Senate has begun a probe into incidence of oil thefts currently bedeviling the Nigerian oil industry; making it difficult for the oil rich country to meet its daily OPEC production quota of 1.8 million barrels.
The Senate is concerned that more than a year after the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act(PIA), the expectations that the new law will breath fresh air into the Nigerian oil industry seems to have been eroded by a massive level of oil theft in the country.
In searching for answers, the Senate through its Committee on Petroleum Upstream Chaired by Senator, Albert Bassey (YPP), Akwa Ibom, Northeast) on Wednesday grilled the Director-General, Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commision (NUPRC), Gbenga Komolafe on efforts by his commission to prevent the huge loss of oil in recent times that has left the Nigerian economy in one of its worst situations ever.
From available reports, between January and February 2021, a period of one month, Nigeria lost a whopping $3.2 billion to oil theft.
The country suffered similar loss of $1.3 billion, the local equivalent of which is about N569 billion between January and May, 2022.
Akpan is troubled by the level of stealing that has shortened a massive 1.5million barrels from Nigeria’s daily oil production.
He linked the oil theft to top syndicate operations that may have compromised Nigeria’s national security with part of the money possibly being used to fund terrorism in the country.
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He wondered why the military and others charged with the responsibilities of watching over Nigeria’s territorial waters allowed such huge oil theft to happen.
“With this level of stealing I see why you cannot attract investors.”
Speaking further, the lawmaker revealed how Total complained about how the company was losing a staggering 80% of its pumped oil to thieves.
Responding, the man at the helm of affairs in the regulatory commission, Komolafe tried to allay the fears of the Senate panel with a long list of proposed interventions by the regulatory agency to effectively tackle the situation.
But unfortunately, many of the solutions are still in the works and hampered by official bottlenecks that require institutional procurement compliance and regulatory approvals that have delayed in coming and may even require some amendments of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
As Nigeria continues to bleed profusely from oil thefts, another member of the Senate Committee, Betty Apiafi (PDP, Rivers South), said there is “fire on the mountain”, the same message
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The Senate demanded concrete timeline from both NUPRC and the Weight and Measure department of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investments on their intervention efforts to stop the ceaseless theft of Nigeria’s oil wealth.
Editor : Ena Agbanoma
