- Manhunt for big players begins
The 6 Division of the Nigeria Army, Port Harcourt, Rivers State has discovered 14 illegal reservoirs containing three million litres of crude oil and 49 boilers in Odagwa Etche Forest, Rivers State.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC) 6 Division, Port Harcourt, Maj.-Gen. Jamal Abdussalam, said the discovery was made by officers of the division through credible intelligence.
Abdusalam said that the operators of the illegal reservoirs had about 49 crude oil boilers, where they refined stolen products and moved them to different locations through various channels.
He said the suspects also constructed many tanks and used hoses and cables to connect crude oil from wellheads located within the area.
The GOC said: “The idea of bringing you here is to let Nigerians know exactly what is happening. You can see that this place is in a deep forest even if you are using helicopter and military drones you will not be able to see what we actually saw here on the ground.
Read Also: Army uncovers 14 reservoirs with 3 million litres of stolen crude oil in Rivers forest
“We have discovered many illegal activities. As you can see we have seen reservoirs that can contain upwards of 200000 litres of crude oil. We have discovered about 14 of them in this bush.
“We have also discovered boilers that are capable of processing crude oil about 49 of them all located inside this bush and we have seen the network of hose and cables connected around the whole area.
“The crude oil we have discovered in this place is in the excess of the daily crude oil export of Nigeria . This is very pathetic and very sad to note.
“Here we discovered 14 reservoirs and each reservoir stored a minimum of 200,000 liters of crude oil.
“So, simple mathematics will give you in excess of 3million liters of crude oil that is stored. We are not talking about the ones that have been processed and taken out. These are the ones that we have discovered.
“This place is called Odagwa in Rivers State and inside this place we have many wellheads. We don’t know the exact number of wellheads around here.
“Most of them are not in use but you can see that it’s from these wellheads that these people put their pipes to steal this oil. Few arrests have been made however those that we have arrested are not the major players in this business. They are just carriers of the stolen oil.”
According to him, the carriers were just labourers, adding that the army would go after the big players.