Oil Exports Account For 80% Total National Revenue

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics has shown that crude oil exports valued at N5.9bn accounted for 80 per cent of total exports undertaken by Nigeria in the second quarter of 2022.

This is despite the huge oil theft recorded in Nigeria in recent times.

The Group Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari disclosed that the country recently has experienced crude oil theft.

Kyari revealed this during an interview last month, adding that Nigeria’s low crude oil output was due to theft resulting from pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta.

According to him, 295 illegal connections had been located around the pipelines, which led to the shutdown of production.

He said, “When you say we are losing 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day, we mean it. No company will produce and lose 80 per cent of its crude oil that will continue to produce.

“So we deliberately shut down the pipeline whenever we see these infractions getting to a limit we cannot control. That means as we speak today, we know that there are at least 700,000 lock-ins that we could have produced that we can’t do because we can’t guarantee the safety of the pipelines.

“While we agree that some of the oil losses are due to technical issues, a larger percentage of it is due to theft. No oil company can continue to operate in such an environment.

“None produces oil for the next person to continue to steal it. If you produce and someone continues to take it, the wise thing is for you to stop the production. This is why we can’t produce.”