Nigeria continues to lose 400,000 barrels of oil daily to criminals, says Ribadu

Nuhu Ribadu, national security adviser (NSA), says Nigeria continues to lose 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily to criminals and economic saboteurs.

Ribadu said this after he led a presidential delegation to inspect the oil and gas facilities at Owaza in Abia and Odogwa in Etche LGA of Rivers on Saturday.

He added that the nation’s economy is badly infected as a result of oil criminals who are behind the reduced crude production in the country.

The NSA mentioned the environmental effects of artisanal refineries on host communities, adding that government infrastructures are also being vandalised.

“It’s unfortunate that few individuals would steal our common resources, and in the process cause unbelievable loss to both the nation, communities and the people,” he said.

“Nigeria has the capacity to produce 2 million barrels of crude daily, but we are currently producing less than 1.6 million barrels due to theft and vandalism of pipelines.

“So, we are talking about 400,000 barrels of crude oil going to waste.

“The value of 400,000 barrels of oil today is about 4 million dollars, and every day, we lose this amount because of this irresponsible behaviour.

“If you multiply 4 million dollars by 365 days (one year), you will see that it is a lot of money running into billions of dollars.”

Ribadu said the country is in desperate need of money as the naira continues to lose its value, hence the need for him to have in his company top security officers of the country, including Baduru Abubakar, minister of defence, Christopher Musa, chief of defence staff (CDS), Hassan Abubakar, chief of air staff (CAS), and Bello Matawalle, the minister of state for defence, amongst others.

Prior to Ribadu’s statement, in April, Timipre Sylva, former minister of state for petroleum resources, confirmed that the country loses 400,000 barrels of crude daily to oil theft.

In February, Yemi Osinbajo, the former vice-president, quoted the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), to have estimated the audited figure of oil theft and losses at 619.7 million barrels of crude oil daily.

“And this is valued at $46 billion or N16.25 trillion, and all of these losses occurred between 2010 and 2020,” he had said. 

“In addition, Nigeria lost about 4.2 billion litres of petroleum products from refineries, which were valued at over $1.4 billion at the rate of 140,000 barrels per day from 2009 to 2018.”