Nigeria has lost over 1.84 billion dollars worth of petroleum products from refineries in nine years to oil theft.
The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Dr Ogbonnaya Orji said this at the opening ceremony of 2024 NEITI board retreat/ meeting in Lagos on Monday.
Oji said between 2009 and 2018 about 4.2 billion litres of petroleum products were lost from the refineries as a result of oil theft which was estimated at 140,000 barrels per day.
He said that these losses has negative effects on the economy which made the previous administration constitute a special panel on oil theft/losses to study the situation.
Orji added that NEITI did a report and made recommendations on the ways to stop oil theft in Nigeria, urging the current administration to look into the report and implement the recommendations.
Baffled by the increasing rate of oil theft, the NEITI boss said, “Figures contained in our 2009 to 2020 audits have put Nigeria’s losses to crude oil theft over a 12-year period at 619.7 million barrels valued at $46.16bn or N16.25tn. Similarly, between 2009 and 2018, the country also lost 4.2 billion litres of petroleum products from refineries valued at $1.84 billion.”
“The five-day retreat was an opportunity to discuss ideas on ways to deal with the current challenges of oil theft, illegal mining, pipeline and other governance challenges that have contributed to the loss of revenues and investment opportunities.
“Our country, Nigeria is heavily dependent on oil revenues for survival. It is within the ambit of this board to support our government and citizens with timely policy decisions and strategies to deal with this unavoidable unfolding development in the extractive sector.”
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