The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has announced the discovery of 4800 illegal connections on oil pipelines in the country.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, disclosed this on Friday while appearing before the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
He said, “We have over 4,800 illegal connections on our pipelines. That means in some lines, within 100 kilometres of pipelines, you have as much as 300 insertions. Therefore, even when you produce the oil, you cannot deliver them at the required pressure and therefore the volume will also be less.”
Lamenting the situation, Kyari said that people from other parts of the country come to insert illegal connections on pipelines in the oil-producing Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
According to him, the latest development came one year after the firm discovered 295 illegal connections to its pipeline.
Two years ago, Kyari said the country was losing 200,000 barrels of oil valued at $13 million daily to theft and vandalism.
“We have two sets of losses, one coming from our products and the other coming from crude oil. In terms of crude losses, it is still going on. On the average, we are losing 200,000 barrels of crude every day.”
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