Why Nigeria Lost 9m Barrels In One Month – Military

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Marshall Oluseyi Petinrin, has given reasons why Nigeria lost over nine million barrels of crude oil to illegal bunkering in one month alone.

Petinrin said that lack of effective regulation was one of the factors responsible for illegal crude oil bunkering in the country, and specifically cost “oil companies over nine million barrels of crude oil in January 2011”.

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Marshal Oluseyi Petinrin,  said yesterday that lack of effective regulation was one of the factors responsible for illegal crude oil bunkering in the country.

The Chief of Defence Staff said this at the House of Representatives Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) and Navy public hearing on illegal crude oil bunkering in Abuja.

He said that measures had been put in place by security agencies to effectively check activities of oil thieves in the country.

The defence chief said that there were no pirates in the county’s waters but some level of criminality.

He said the Navy needed more ships to effectively monitor the creeks and the high sea.

Petinrin said that all boats and badges operating in the Niger Delta region were being registered by the Armed Forces.

“The registration will help us to determine what the boats and badges are carrying,” he said.

He blamed government agencies saddled with the responsibilities of registering boats and badges of not performing their duties.

In his presentation, Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ola Ibrahim  said that lack of information sharing among security agencies was hampering fight against crude oil theft.

He noted that activities of insiders who were former staff of oil companies was helping oil thieves who had already-made market for their products.