The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has said some oil firms are shutting down operations because of oil theft and pipeline vandalism.
According to the union, Nigeria cannot meet its Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Organisation (OPEC) quota per day because of oil theft.
PENGASSAN National President, Festus Osifo, stated this during a press conference ahead of the union’s rally in Abuja, Kaduna, Lagos and Warri today.
Osifo said some companies were losing about 50, 000 barrels of crude oil per day to crude theft.
He said some companies in the service sector were shutting down their operations because they couldn’t pay salaries of workers.
He said: “Today, the country is near comatose, it is almost on its knees because of oil theft.
“The OPEC quota for Nigeria is somewhere above 1.8m barrels of crude oil per day but today we struggle to produce just over 1m barrels because the majority of these crude oil are stolen.
“Companies are shutting production because they cannot produce and send into the pipelines because most of these products are stolen.
“Instead of them continuing to keep producing, what is being done as of today is that the majority of our land operations are shut down because of oil theft.
“Some companies in the service sector are folding their operations because they cannot sustain the workforce anymore, they cannot pay salaries.”
For example, Agip today has literally shut down production from land locations. The reason is because they cannot continuously produce and allow thieves to remove the entire product. Addax has shut down OML 124, no production anymore because it cannot be sustained anymore. Total E & P for example in OML 58, there has been challenges in that location since January. Initially they shut down production completely but because the well also has associated gas, what happened at the end of the day is that they produced the crude oil, stored it in the tank and they reinjected it into the well. That means the oil that could have bettered the lives of Nigerians, they sent it back into the well.
“SPDC is one of the worst hit as of today. They have shut down most of the land locations.
“The reason we are doing this is because a lot of companies are shorting in production and when you short a single barrel you are shorting $100. When you short 10, 0000 barrels you are shorting 10, 000 barrels multiplied by a 100. If you do the math, that is about a million dollars every day. And some companies are shorting 40, 000 to 50, 000 barrels of crude oil per day.
“Those that still push the products into the pipelines when they push the products from one end to the other end they receive less than two per cent of what they pumped in from the plant. When you get to the terminal, everything is stolen.
Osifo called on well-meaning Nigerians to join hands to solve the crude oil challenge in the sector.
He said the union’s engagements with the Federal Government and security agencies had not yielded fruit.
The PENGASSAN president alleged that some security agents were colluding with criminals to aid crude theft in the Niger Delta.
He said: “From tomorrow (today) we are going to embark on a rally to sensitise the nation on what our stands are and we are going to call the government to action because our members are losing jobs.”
“For a company that is losing this amount of money the first thing the company will do is to let go of our members. Our members are losing jobs in the production companies and in the service companies.
“This is a real time challenge that all stakeholders must come together to find a solution to; that all well-meaning Nigerians must close ranks irrespective of party affiliations to solve the problem because if this problem is not solved, the government will keep printing money to pay salaries.
“This is a real crisis that the government of the day must develop the political will, the muscles to go after oil thieves.”