Nigeria is not left out in the effect of the global recession hitting countries across the world. However, the peculiarity of Nigeria\u2019s situation is the apparent absence of concrete policies, measures and political will to salvage the situation. For an economy that is heavily dependent on crude oil, the depletion of Nigeria\u2019s daily oil production rate by 28.4 million barrels between January and July 2022 severely threatens the projected revenue of N9.3 trillion in the 2022 national budget. The country had attained a production rate of 1.399 million barrels per day (mbd) in January 2022, but this plunged in subsequent months. The Federal Government attributed the falling production rate to the high cost of petrol subsidy, pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft. In a period where oil producing States are benefitting from\u00a0 global high oil prices, the Nigerian government is reporting crude theft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 8th<\/sup> August, the Nigerian Navy was\nreported to have investigated the activities of a water vessel, MT Heroic Idun,\nowned by Hunters Tankers AS domiciled in Norway, which was sighted in Akpo oil\nfield in Rivers State and suspected to have entered the field without\nauthorisation and with the intent to illegally lift crude oil. The captain was\nsaid to have been uncooperative and fled from the area. The vessel was\neventually apprehended by the authorities in Equatorial Guinea, working with the\nNigerian Navy. According to the Nigerian Navy, the vessel had not commenced\nlifting oil from the field before it was apprehended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At an investigative hearing on the petrol subsidy\nregime from 2017 to 2021, organised by the House of Representatives Committee\non Fuel Subsidy in July 2022, the Nigerian Navy stated that it has handed over\n70 out of 147 vessels arrested for oil bunkering and crude oil theft to the\nEconomic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Meanwhile, on 12th<\/sup> August, the Nigeria\nNational Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited launched a Crude Theft Monitoring app,\nwhere members of host (oil) communities and other Nigerians can report\nincidents of crude oil theft in exchange for a reward. At the launch, the Chief\nExecutive Officer of the NNPC, Mele Kyari revealed that the company was\npartnering with security agencies and relevant stakeholders to tackle oil\ntheft, with one of the proposed measures to achieve this being the creation of\na platform where investors and traders can validate the source of the crude oil\nthey receive from Nigeria, to avoid patronising dealers of stolen crude. Kyari had\nin April 2022, stated that Nigeria lost $4 billion to oil theft at the rate of\n200,000 barrels per day in 2021, and the sum of $1.5 billion in 2022 due to\npipeline vandalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite these measures, observers are not confident in\nthe ability of the Nigerian government to effectively plug these huge leakages.\nThe moribund state of refineries, the activities of illegal refineries and\ncrude oil theft have plagued Nigeria\u2019s oil sector for so long. However, it\nseems that the effects are biting now more than ever, at a time when a\nsignificant portion of the country\u2019s revenue is going into debt servicing and\npetrol subsidy, with no solution in the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nigeria is not left out in the effect of the global recession hitting countries across the world. However, the peculiarity of Nigeria\u2019s situation is the apparent absence of concrete policies, measures and political will to salvage the situation. For an economy that is heavily dependent on crude oil, the depletion of Nigeria\u2019s daily oil production […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2864,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2858\/revisions\/2864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}