The Federal Government, on Monday, revealed that more than N4.3tn worth of crude oil was stolen in 7,143 pipeline vandalism cases within a period of five years.
It disclosed this at the Nigeria International Pipeline Technology and Security Conference in Abuja, with the theme, ‘Bolstering Regulations, Technology and Security for Growth.’ The conference was organised by the Pipeline Professionals Association of Nigeria.
In a presentation at the conference by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a Federal Government agency, the organisation revealed that oil theft and losses in Nigeria had become a national emergency.
The Executive Secretary, NEITI, Ogbonnaya Orji, said oil theft was an emergency that posed serious threat to oil exploration and exploitation with huge negative consequences on economic growth, business prospects and profit earnings by oil companies.
Providing data from the agency’s reports to back his claims, he…