Mele Kyari, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ltd’s group managing director, says President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime lost $1.5 billion to oil thieves between January and March 2022. 

Mr Buhari is the minister of petroleum resources in Nigeria. Timipre Sylva, a chieftain of his ruling APC, deputises for him.

Mr Kyari disclosed the billion-dollar loss on Thursday in Abuja when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Upstream, investigating the loss of Nigeria’s crude oil production to theft.

Meanwhile, lawmakers urged Mr Buhari to declare a state of emergency in conveying crude oil and mandated the strict monitoring of pipelines.

The NNPC boss disclosed that the country lost over $1.5 billion to oil theft between January and March 2022, calling for special courts to unmask those behind illegal crude oil refining.

“We must have special courts to try those behind this business. This is an elite business. It is not done by poor people,” he said.

He expressed worry over the loss of crude oil production to activities of vandals and oil thieves, adding that stern security measures were being considered to restore the production situation and improve revenue.

He also mentioned that efforts were on top gear to ensure the situation was addressed, stressing that there would be tremendous progress within the next two months.

Mr Kyari said thieves and vandals had rendered some of the facilities useless as the activities of vandals and thieves had got to a level that the NNPC had to shut down some facilities.

According to him, the NNPC can no longer sustain production as expected because of the activities of the oil thieves and vandals.

“It came to a level where we could only receive 300 barrels per day,” he said.

(NAN)