Nigeria: Oil Theft Costs Nigeria $14 Billion Yearly

Nigeria loses $14 billion a year to the highly lucrative and illegal business of oil bunkering, the President of the Corporate Council on Africa, Stephen Hayes has said.

Hayes who spoke to THISDAY in Washington DC arrived at the figure based on the number of barrels per day that the country loses on oil.

According to him, “if you are losing 600,000 barrels a day on oil at $70 a barrel, you are losing $12 million a day on oil theft. Every five days, that means $200 million, $210 every 25 days, $1 billion of theft on oil. Extrapolate that – 25 days a month, 12 months in a year and you know you are losing $12 billion. But there’s five extra months so you’re losing $14 billion in oil in a year.”
On measures to be taken to solve the problem, Energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, Alex Iannaccone told THISDAY that there should be proper metering on all oil and gas installations, in addition to fighting corruption.

His words: “Metering means measuring how much oil is moving through Nigeria. How much is being produced, loaded and shipped elsewhere. To get effective metering would mean tackling the whole issue of corruption. Corruption is the root of the problem.”

Continuing, he said “the people I have spoken to say the bunkering happens on two different levels – a small scale locally and then there’s this very highly organized oil theft that exists. The other way to tackle it is by approaching corruption and doing so in a way that you are measuring the oil that is moving through the system at all the key points.”

allAfrica