NUPRC: Nigeria loses over 115,000 barrels per day to oil theft, vandalism

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) says the country loses more than 115,000 barrels per day to oil theft and vandalism.

Gbenga Komolafe, chief executive officer of NUPRC, disclosed this in a presentation made to the Senate Committee on Petroleum, Upstream, led by Bassey Akpan, during an oversight meeting at its headquarters on Wednesday in Abuja.

According to the NURPC boss, the commission hit N1.99 trillion revenue in 2020, surpassing its forecast of N1.746 trillion by about 13.98 per cent.

But in 2021, with a revenue target of N3.066 trillion, the commission said it generated N2.711 trillion, resulting in 88.45 percent.

Komolafe also stated that its target revenue for 2022 remained N3.38 trillion, substantially exceeding its 2021 revenue projection of N3 trillion.

“We are losing about 115,926 barrels per day — so that literally translates to roughly about $300 million, and that’s a huge loss to a nation that actually requires these funds,” he stated.

He attributed the underperformance to mostly oil theft, sabotage, vandalism as well as technical issues, including ruptures associated with the assets.

“But the larger percentage is due to crude oil theft, and as a commission, we know the impact of this, and recognising our regulatory role, we have been able to reach out to other operators as to what we can do about this,” he added.

“We are trying to put in place an industry-wide initiative to ameliorate the situation, and we are expecting to go live in terms of implementation in collaboration with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and the other stakeholders.”

Komolafe said despite the encumbrances, the commission would continue to promote an enabling environment for investment in the upstream petroleum sector, establish, monitor and regulate as well as enforce environmental measures and optimise government’s take from the country’s hydrocarbon resources.

He also informed the senate committee that the 2020 marginal field bid round concluded last year yielded about N174.944 billion.

According to him, 20 companies that won the bids had partially paid up, among those who won the 57 oilfields.

Marginal fields are smaller oil blocks developed by indigenous companies. They are often discovered on an IOC-owned block where there has been no activity in at least the last 10 years.

On May 31, the federal government awarded licence letters to successful investors for the development of 57 marginal oilfields.