Nigeria: NNPC records 48 million dollars loss to oil theft this year

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that the country has recorded about 48 million dollars (or N17 billion) loss to oil theft this year alone based on the benchmark oil price exchange rate of N360/$1, according to a news report by Daily Trust.

The corporation's Group Managing Director, Mallam Mele Kyari has made this disclosure at an interactive hearing on 'Exiting Petroleum Subsidy: Ensuring Self-Sufficiency in Domestic Refining of Petroleum Products' by the Senate Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream and Downstream).

Kyari, who said that the 48 million dollars loss was lower than the 825 million dollars and 725 million dollars recorded in 2018 and 2019 respectively, attributed the reduction to increased surveillance of oil pipelines by the security agencies.

Speaking on the volume of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) being consumed daily in the country, the GMD said the corporation had no knowledge of the daily consumption of petroleum products or volume being

He clarified, "We don't know how much petroleum we consume daily in this country, but we know how much of product is taken out of depots."

According to him, this year about 54 million liters of petroleum products are being evacuated from the depots daily, but the consumption is somewhere below that.

In addition, he said the state-owned oil company did not also know the actual volume of products being transported across Nigeria's borders to neighboring countries, adding that "it is impossible to know, nobody declares it, and therefore as it crosses, it goes."