The Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd, Mele Kyari has lamented the negative impacts of the activities of oil vandals and operators of illegal refineries, which he said has led to the country losing $1.5 billion dollars worth of crude between January till date.
Kyari spoke yesterday when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) which is investigating the rationale behind the country’s low oil production.
He said the country’s oil sector was recording an all-time low crude oil production of 1.49 million barrels per day due to the increasing activities of vandals and operators of illegal refineries who have continued to engage in oil thefts and vandalisation of oil installations.
“When you lose about 200,000 barrels per day, even at an average price of 65 dollars per barrel, we lost close to 1 billion dollars between January and March. From January till date, we lost an average of 250,000 barrels per day and at the current price of about 100 dollars to the barrel, even within this short period, we have lost close to 1.5 billion dollars.
“This situation deteriorated to the extent that by March 7, 2022, it came to zero and so, we shut down the line and declared Force Majeure. Even on our most reliable pipeline, which is the Forcados pipeline, we still lose about 7000 barrels per day. Needless to say that this is all coming as a result of the acts of vandals and oil thieves”, he said.
Kyari however assured the lawmakers that massive joint security operations among the various security agencies were currently being carried out across areas of its operations to address the situation.
Earlier, the Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), Rep. Sarki Adar (APC-Sokoto) said the interface with the NNPC GMD was to ascertain the factors responsible for the decline in the country’s oil production with a view to proffering solutions.
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