From Uche Usim, Abuja
With oil theft and pipeline vandalism reaching unprecedented levels, a former President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Dr Brown Ogbeifun, has called for a stop to the national haemorrhage or have the economy collapse completely.
Specifically, he said that the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) has lost about N1.5 trillion from the vandalisation of its assets by oil thieves.
Ogbeifun said this at the PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit Monday in Abuja.
According to him, large-scale oil theft has not robbed the government of handsome revenue, but vandalised job creation opportunities for Nigerians and violated the oil-producing communities.
Nigeria is said to lose about 400,000 barrels per day of crude to oil thieves. As a result, the country is not able to meet its OPEC production quota.
The petroleum expert said that the rate of oil theft if not addressed will continue to be a disincentive to investors.
While describing the terrible situation as unacceptable, Ogbeifun said Nigeria might not come out of the oil theft trap, which he says seems to have been taken as a way of life.
“Between 2021 and 2022, Nigeria lost the sum of $1.2 billion to oil theft. The economy is in the intensive care unit,” he stated.
He further said that with energy transition issues gaining traction, it was important that the country maximize its oil revenue as according to him, Nigeria still needs money from oil to transit.
“This is the time to hurriedly do what we can with crude oil money.”
He added that failure to quickly end the massive oil theft will mean that workers in different sectors of the economy won’t get paid.
To address the situation, he urged the government to criminalise oil theft. According to him, “there is no law in Nigeria that categorise oil theft as sabotage. We are running a system as if the law does not exist.”
He advised the Association to join in the fight against oil theft as they also are negatively impacted by the outcome.
“PENGASSAN should look inwards for the blacklegs in the oil companies that aid and abate oil theft. Insider dealings should also be critically assessed. PENGASSAN should search and purge itself. It is time for those among you that are engaged in such to steal no more,” he said.