Page 24 - Nigeriaone mag 3 edition en

Mr Komofale suggested that the initiatives were
targeted at addressing two critical issues, resolving
the issue of oil theft and pipeline vandalism and
creating a conducive environment to ensure that
priority and preference is given to improving the
regulatory environment to improve the levels of local
refining of petroleum products in Nigeria.
“The initiatives include a roadmap for tackling the
insecurity challenges in the industry, identifying and
implementing areas of collaboration between
government and operators in ensuring that
operators realise their full production potentials,” he
said.
“Others are a massive collaboration with the top civil
echelon of the Nigerian security forces for robust
security for both operators and host communities.
In contributing to the discourse, Michael Olwale-Cole,
president of the LCCI, mentioned that he was
concerned over the current and fragile state of the
nation: security challenges, poor infrastructure,
dwindling revenues from the oil and gas sector, high
costs of production and the fuel subsidy issue that
has become unsustainable.

Barrel of Oil in Nigeria

This is indeed worrisome as oil theft had worsened
over the years and it had taken a troublesome
dimension, with losses from oil theft and pipeline
vandalisation devastating the production and
profitability of the International Oil Companies
(IOCs).
The president of LCCI added that this disturbing
trend had severely affected indigenous oil companies
as these firms have had to battle escalating
operational costs. Indigenous firms had to scale up
personal costs, improve security provision for their
workers safety and protection.
“The menace of oil theft has become a national
disaster and a critical threat to our revenue base as
Nigeria is losing crude oil at the level of about 91
percent of output,” he said.
“Nigeria lost $3.2 billion to crude oil theft between
January 2021 and February 2022, as revealed by the
NUPRC, the LCCI Oil Producers Trade Section, and
the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG).
Smugglers in action

Focus 24