JUST IN: NNPC’s Fight Against Crude Oil Theft Boosts Production To 1.59 Million Barrels Per Day, Says Wunti

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd has said that crude oil production in Nigeria has increased to 1.59 million barrels per day as of the first week of December.

The Chief Upstream Investment Officer of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services, Bala Wunti made the disclosure while speaking on ‘Crude oil production and theft containment control’, on Arise TV.

The improvement is coming a few days after THE WHISTLER exclusively reported that crude oil production rose to 1.47 million barrels/day by the end of November 2022.

In August, crude oil theft forced Nigeria’s production down to 1.1 million barrels per day far below the OPEC quota for the country.

By implication, crude oil theft cut the contribution of foreign exchange earnings from crude oil export from 90 per cent when production was high to 78.5 per cent as of the third quarter of 2022.

Crude oil export as of the third quarter of 2022 was N4.65trn down by 21.15 per cent from the N5.907trn recorded in the second quarter of 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics ‘Foreign Trade’ report published this week.

But compared to the Q3 of 2021, the crude oil exports rose by 15.7 per cent compared to N4.02trn recorded.

The menace of crude oil theft had made the NNPC Ltd to engage a private security, Tantita Securities Service owned by Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo (Tompolo) on August 13 for pipeline surveillance.

Wunti said, “The new security architecture is structure laid on technology. What it does is to bring together the security and intelligence agency in one table, the regulators in the other and then bring in what was zero, the community into the other angle and without the community, we can’t achieve that.

“Today, we are able to dictate, detect and we able to respond. The success that we recorded today was essential because of this improved security situation. We are now almost at an average of 350,000 to 400,000 barrels/day increase. At a certain level we recorded up to 450,000 barrels/day increase in the given year.

“That is why you can see we are now from 1.1mbpd daily to about 1.59bpd as at today this morning. So, these are some of the things that we are able to record based on the new security architecture.”

Wunti assured that with the collective resolve of private securities and government securities there would be further improvement in crude oil production which would, in turn, reflect in foreign exchange earnings.

Currently, over 68 vessels involved in crude oil theft have been arrested, while 638 illegal refineries out of 763 have been destroyed.

According to him, the security architecture has been institutionalized, adding that the NNPC engaged three contractors including Tompolo’s Tantita.

On measures that will protect the new security architecture from sabotage, he said the NNPC has a clear understanding of the importance of relationships with host communities in protecting oil assets in the long run.

He said, “We have incapacitated almost about 70 per cent of what we have identified and we will keep identifying some of them. It is mind-boggling what we discovered even as operators and every one of us saw the kind of sophistication where illegal connections are put on every major trunklines including directing export lines on Forcados.

“It couldn’t have been possible without the collective resolve of the private security guards anchored by the communities. We have short-medium and long-term visibility. I can tell you we have succeeded to an extent stop this menace.

“The question now is how to stop its growth of it. We introduced ‘checking the checker and who is checking the checker.’ What that means is that we have four layers of feasibility. I’m the coordinator of the industry’s security, I am only at the second level, and I don’t know what is happening at the third level and the fourth level.

“I don’t even know who they are, but I know they exist. So, even me I am being monitored as I speak, act and do whatever I do.”

According to him the system and technology have come to stay, adding that it is improved upon on daily basis.