11 years of oil theft cost Nigeria N16.25 trillion (Abass) According to Tajudeen Abbas, Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, between 2009 and 2020, crude oil theft cost the nation N16.25 trillion.
While establishing an ad hoc committee to look into crude oil theft and lost income, Abbas made the declaration in Abuja. According to him, Nigeria loses between 5% and 30% of daily crude oil production due to the scourge of crude oil theft, which has severely slowed the country’s oil production development.
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The speaker expressed dismay that crucial agencies for the oil and gas industry had declined to accept the committee’s invitation, saying that by refusing to go before the legislature to respond to inquiries on the crucial part of the economy, the agencies were doing no good for the country.
He warned that the government would experience a worsening fiscal crisis as a result of declining revenue from the oil and gas sector if immediate action was not taken to address the problem.
Abbas claimed that Nigeria’s oil production decreased from 2.51 million barrels per day in 2005 to 1.77 million barrels per day in 2020, citing information from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, or NEITI.
According to NEITI statistics, 619 million barrels of crude with a market value of $46 billion were stolen between 2009 and 2020, he added, adding that Nigeria had consistently fallen short of its daily production target set by OPEC.
Furthermore, Nigeria’s OPEC quota “was recently reduced from 1.742 million barrels per day to 1.38 million barrels per day,” according to Abbas.Even so, the nation still finds it difficult to reach this quota as daily production output in May and June 2023 was 1.184 million and 1.249 million barrels per day, respectively.
The budget projection of 1.69 million units per day is far below the average daily production output at this time. The country’s current economic crisis makes the implications clear.
Several task forces, special committees, and investigative panels were previously established to address the threat of crude oil theft, the speaker noted, and each produced a wide range of conclusions and suggestions.
“NEITI gives yearly updates on the amount of crude oil stolen or lost due to sabotage,” he stated. Despite the massive resources previously spent to combating it, the threat of oil theft has persisted unabated.
Alhassa Usman Rumrum, the committee’s chairman, declared that the amount of economic damage caused by oil theft in the nation was utterly intolerable and could not be condoned by any administration that truly loved its people.
“This daily act of sabotage and violation of our national security and sovereignty makes a caricature of our pride as a nation and even a mockery of the acclaimed status of our armed forces,” he said.
It is an affront to the government and its institutions, and it ought to be addressed right away.These are the reasons why the House established this committee and why it is committed to ending this repulsive trend. If not, our remaining children who have not yet emigrated to other nations in pursuit of survival may not have a future.
According to Rumrum, those responsible for the crime should be turned over to the Nigerian police so they can be tried seriously.
Mr. Alabi Abiodun, a police representative, claimed that the police had established a task force to aid other security agencies in apprehending those who were attacking oil infrastructure.
In order to combat the threat of oil theft, he claimed that the police were committed to collaborating with the committee. Six weeks have been allocated to the committee to submit its findings.
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