Nigeria losing 20% of daily crude production to oil thieves – Wale Tinubu

Nigeria may not be able to meet its OPEC quota in September due to rising crude oil theft which has seen Africa’s largest economy lose 20% of its daily crude production to oil thieves and pipeline vandals.

This was disclosed by Wale Tinubu, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Oando Plc, at the 2022 Nigerian Oil and Gas (NOG) conference and exhibition on Tuesday in Abuja.

This comes as the Nigerian government revealed that Nigeria lost a staggering $1 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2022.

What Oando boss is saying

Tinubu urged the FG and stakeholders to deploy collaborative efforts in tackling the crises, adding that the implementation of sabotage detection technology, on-ground and aerial surveillance as well as community policing, will help tame the issues.

Tinubu said: “There has been a 43% reduction in our production from March 2020 to May 2022.

“We lose almost 20% of our daily crude production to oil thieves and pipeline vandals and 20,000 barrels a day of oil is lost to oil theft.

“Basically some three million barrels on an average yearly is lost to oil theft and pipeline vandalism.”

He warned that reduced oil production due to crude theft will also reduce Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product citing that “The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) gave us a quota of 1.4 million barrels per day and we were struggling to do 1.21 million barrels per day.

“We will get to a quota of 1.8 million very soon because the OPEC agreement expires in September. They are easing production by 400,000 barrels per day.

He warned that “We are not meeting the quota and we will not be able to meet it by that September”.

What you should know

Nairametrics reported earlier that Gbenga Komolafe, the head of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission said that due to crude oil theft, Nigeria lost a staggering $1 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2022, endangering the economy of Africa’s top producer.

Only about 132 million barrels of the 141 million barrels of oil produced in the first quarter of 2022 were received at export terminals, according to Gbenga Komolafe, the chairman of NUPRC.

Nairametrics reported earlier this year, Austin Avuru, founding MD/CEO of Seplat Energy and Executive Chairman AA Holdings warned that Nigeria’s oil production has reached an emergency critical status.

He stated that some oil production wells don’t get to see 80% of production making it to the terminals due to oil theft.