The Nigeria Navy has uncovered two locations where high-level crude oil theft occurs in Rivers State.
The sites are in Kala Ekweama in Asari-Toru and Degema Local Government Areas where the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) operates Oil Minning Lease (OML)-18.
Commander of NNS PathFinder in the state, Commodore Suleiman Ibrahim, announced this yesterday as the House of Representatives restated its resolve to investigate crude oil theft in the country.
NNPCL had on Monday revealed that a 150,000 metric tonne-capacity vessel laden with stolen crude was intercepted and destroyed in the Niger Delta.
It also said that 64 illegal crude oil connections were discovered and 77 illegal refineries were destroyed in the region last week.
At the Kala Ekweama site, reporters who accompanied the NNPC Pathfinder boss, observed two large wooden boats (Cameroun boats), capable of containing over one million litres of crude with rubber pipes connected to a wellhead.
Also, the forest littered with other types of pipes, awaiting to be laid underground.
At the Okakara facility, it was observed that criminals carefully cleared the forest and laid pipes at three different loading points.
Six cameroon wooden boats were already on the ground, awaiting loading. Some connecting valves were seen at the place.
Ibrahim said the discoveries were made during an air patrol of the councils by personnel of the command on Monday
The Navy chief added that troops recovered from the sabotaged facility, boats, equipment and other machines used.
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He said: "The activities of the criminals in this terrain (Ekweama) were discovered by our air assets. The Navy has put everything on the ground to ensure that it curbs illegal crude oil theft in the Niger Delta.
At the Okakara facility, the Commander advised NNPCL to look inwards, adding that the attacks on its facilities might be perpetrated by "people close by."
He added that the technical work done at the site must have been by highly skilled people.
Ibrahim said: "The arrangement here is a bit more complex. You can see that a lot of technical skills have been involved when we found that pipes have been laid directly to the wellhead and then taken all the way to about three different loading points.
"As it stands, we will work with the company (NNPCL) to find out who exactly was responsible for these connections.
"We have already contacted the operators of OML 18 to send their technical team to fix the damages."
The House of Representatives is to constitute an ad hoc committee to probe crude oil theft in the country.
The decision followed a motion by Phillip Agbese.
Agbese said that reports showed that about 40 percent of crude oil loss by the country was due to inaccuracies in measurement and theft.
He added that the reports indicated that in 2021 alone, Nigeria lost $4 billion to oil theft at the rate of 200,000 barrels per day.
The lawmaker also said that a 2022 report by the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) shows that about 619.7 million barrels of crude oil, valued at $46.16 billion were stolen in the last 12 years.
Agbese's request for the probe was immediately agreed to by his colleagues.
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