Senate constitutes ad hoc committee on crude oil theft

15 Apr Senate constitutes ad hoc committee on crude oil theft

The Senate has constituted a 13-member ad hoc committee to investigate suspected crude theft and its impact on the economy. President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, announced this during plenary on Thursday.

Mr Lawan said the committee would be chaired by Bassey Akpan (PDP-Akwa Ibom).

“Other members are Sen. Yusuf A. Yusuf, Sen. Solomon Adeola, Sen. Kabiru Gaya, Sen. Mohammed Aliero, Sen. George Sekibo and Sen. Gabriel Suswam.

“The rest are Sen. Kashim Shettima, Sen. Aliyu Sabi, Sen. Ali Ndume, Sen. Stella Oduah, Sen. Sani Musa and Sen. Ibrahim Gobir,” he said.

The committee is expected to complete its assignment in one month.

Last week, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, had disclosed that Nigeria lost $4 billion to oil theft at the rate of 200,000 barrels per day in 2021.

He added that the country already lost $1.5 billion so far in 2022 because pipeline vandalism has escalated.

Mr Kyari said the country was losing 95 per cent of oil production to thieves at Bonny Terminal, Rivers State.

The confirmation came following a revelation by the claim by the Chairman of the United Bank of Africa, Tony Elumelu, that Nigeria was losing that much to thieves at the terminal.

Mr Elumelu had in a Twitter thread on March 17, said Nigeria was losing 95 per cent of production at the Bonny terminal to vandals making Shell to declare force majeure production activities on that field.

“Look at Bonny Terminal that should be receiving 200k barrels per day, instead it received less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator @shell to declare fe majeure,” Mr Elumelu tweeted.

Mr Kyari said Nigeria could only get 3,000 barrels out of 239,000 barrels injected into the pipeline from Bonny Terminal. (NAN)