NNPC activates monitoring apps to curb crude oil theft

*Mele Kyari, Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Limited, discloses

the portal has application options for reporting incidence of crude theft with prompt follow up and responses, and another one for crude sales documents validation in Nigeria

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

In a move to curtail the growing and disturbing menace in the country’s economy, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has  launched  ‘Crude Theft Monitoring Applications’ to curb oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the oil and oil gas industry.

The NNPC Limited activated the applications Friday, August 12, 2022,   on the sideline of the signing of renewed Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) agreements between the Company and its partners in Oil Mining Leases, in Abuja, FCT.

ConsumerConnect reports the portal with the address ‘stopcrudetheft.com’ could also be accessed through consumers’ mobile phones.

According to NNPC, the portal has application options for reporting incidence of crude theft and economic sabotage, with prompt follow up and responses, and another one for crude sales documents validation.

Malam Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (GMD/CEO) of NNPC Limited, at the launch, said:  “Vandals’ actions on pipelines became a difficult thing to deal with, but it engaged partners to ensure that it responded to the situation.”

Kyari stated that there is involvement of government regulatory bodies, security agencies, and host communities while it put up a robust framework to curtail the menace.

The NNPC CEO said: “There are still ongoing activities of oil thieves and vandals on our pipelines and assets, very visible in the form of illegal refineries that are continuously put up in some locations and insertions into our pipeline network.

He also disclosed l: “Arrests have been made and vessels have been arrested by Nigerian Navy.”

“I commend the Armed Forces, in the last three months, they have done substantive work and had destroyed some illegal refineries.”

Caution to thieving collaborators and international refineries

The NNPC Chief as well cautioned the international refineries where the stolen crude could be taken to also have obligations to ensure they bought the Nigerian crude from “credible sources” which could be validated.

“If they refused to do that, they would be held responsible as part of the culprits involved,” Kyari declared.

He explained that the digital platforms were created for members of the communities, and other Nigerian consumers to report incidence of crude theft, and be rewarded.

Kyari urged the international community, especially oil companies, which he stated must report suspicious sale.

“Every product that left the country must have a unique registration number by the NNPC and validated by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

“Ahead of this, we are also creating a platform where end-users, particularly refiners and traders can validate the product,” said he.

Kyari further stressed: “We cannot do this without international collaboration.

“It is impossible for any refinery to take a crude they do not know the source, refineries are designed to process certain specific grade of crude.

“It is their duty to ensure that they validate this, because we have unique number of every crude that leaves this country.”

He added: “We have visibility around everyone’s operations and the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) is following everyone related to those transactions.

“Wherever there is massive movement of cash, EFCC will follow the person, we believe that the combination of all these will get us back to normalcy.”