In a shocking revelation, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, has narrated how an illegal oil pipeline connecting directly to the high sea was recently discovered.

Kyari said the major oil export terminal that had its products diverted into the sea had been operating undetected for nine years.

The four-kilometre or 2.5-mile connection from the Forcados export terminal, which typically exports around 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, into the sea was found during a clamp-down on theft in the past six weeks, Kyari said during a meeting with the Nigerian senate.

“Oil theft in the country has been going on for over 22 years but the dimension and rate it assumed in recent times is unprecedented,” Kyari told the lawmakers.“But in rising up to the highly disturbing challenge, NNPC, has in recent time in collaboration with relevant security agencies clamped down on the economic saboteurs.“In the course of the clampdown within the last six weeks, 395 illegal refineries have been deactivated, 274 reservoirs destroyed, 1,561 metal tanks destroyed, 49 trucks seized. The most striking of all, is the four-kilometre illegal oil connection line from Forcados Terminal into the sea which had been in operation undetected for nine solid years,” he added.

While thieves often tap land-based pipelines to siphon oil undetected, but an illegal line in the ocean is highly unusual and suggests a more sophisticated theft operation.

Forcados is operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), a local subsidiary of Shell.

Nigeria has been losing potential revenue from some 600,000 bpd of oil, Kyari mostly as a result of shut-ins due to vandalism.

Crude oil exports fell to 972,000 bpd in August for the first time since at least 1990 as a result, starving Nigeria of crucial cash.

Activities at the affected terminal have been stopped since a leak was found from a sub-sea hose at the terminal on July 17.

Shell said this week that it expected loadings to resume in the second half of October. Kyari, however puts it in a number of days.

In August, NNPC awarded contracts to companies including those owned by former militants to crack down on oil theft.

Kyari further told the lawmakers that Nigeria was in a ‘calamitous’ situation over oil theft, and pipeline vandalism with attendant low production. (THISDAY)

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