The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, has sought the support of stakeholders in the oil and gas sector to tackle crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region.
He called on the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, the National Association of Road Transport Owners, and others to fight the menace.
Kyari said this on Tuesday at the 5th quadrennial delegates’ conference in Asaba, Delta State.
The theme of the conference was, “Just Energy Transition: For oil and gas workers’ social welfare and security.”
The theft of crude oil has been hurting the revenue of the Federal Government and has been denying the country the much-needed fund to boost economic development.
Apart from revenue loss, the issue of oil theft is currently threatening not just the NNPC’s quest for energy security for the country, it is also having a debilitating effect on Nigeria’s revenue earnings.
Kyari said as major stakeholders in the oil and gas business, the time had come for NUPENG and NARTO to collaborate with the NNPC in bringing the issue of crude oil theft to an end.
He said, “Activities of oil thieves have gotten to a level that we haven’t seen before, almost bringing down this industry to its knees today.
“As we speak now, our production is less than 1.5 million barrels per day. This no doubt will affect the investing companies, they will not have the resources to continue to invest and therefore making more and more sustainable employment becomes a challenge, no doubt about it.
“That is why all of us must practically come together to see how we can contend with it. There is so much going on now. We are leading a process to ensure that we intervene in the security matter.
“We want to ensure that everybody is involved so that ultimately we can get back this industry or otherwise this industry will collapse in our hands and if it does, we will not be talking about employment and this is the reality we are facing today.”
