President Muhammadu Buhari’s aide, Senator Ita Enang, has come under attack for proposing that illegal oil refiners should be included in the country’s oil refining structure and policy, and for the countries to tap from their expertise, and provide employment for the perpetrators.
Speaking on national television last weekend, Enang, who is senior special assistant to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, had called on the federal government to consider allocating crude oil to illegal refineries operators to curb the growing theft of the commodity in the Niger Delta and stop the soot in the region.
But former group executive director for Refineries and Petrochemicals at the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Afolabi Oladele, said the move will be counterproductive as it would mean empowering ‘oil thieves.’
“You want to begin to give crude oil to the so called illegal refiners. The sheer damage to the environment is just manifesting itself in black sooth currently being suffered in Port Harcourt.” Oladele said.
According to him, the condition of the environment in the Niger Delta is a major concern and it is owed mainly to the activities of illegal refineries and bunkering. He said leaving the environment wholly in the hands of illegal refiners will worsen the situation.
“Anyone who is operating in the eastern delta throughout 2021 would have lost half of production to oil theft. We cannot meet the quota, not that from production end we cannot, but given the crisis to oil theft, Nigeria is being bled to death. You can now see why the oil majors are leaving Nigeria,” the former NNPC chief stated.
But in his position, also on national television last weekend, Enang said the regime of black sooth emissions in the region is owed to attributable to gas flaring and illegal refining, which leads to environmental damage.
Enang had informed that the illegal mining situation in the Niger Delta, of which the government of Rivers state is at the battle, prompted a meeting where all the actors were brought to the table where various accounts were taken.
The former Senator stated that a potent way out of illegal refining is to provide alternative source of livelihood for the players, especially as it was discovered that indeed the group of persons involved are skilled and trained for what they are doing.
Enang added that each state governments will have to engage with the illegal refiners, noting that there is the need for a refinery park, which will ensure that crude oil is legally given to the refiners.
“Artisanal refining is not being carried out by uneducated persons but those trained by the various institutions of learning in the country,” he said, adding that they are therefore qualified to be engaged.
“They are not ordinary artisans that are not uneducated. Remember, this country through the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) had sent most of these children abroad and the universities around to train them on petroleum technology.
“The Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Warri, trained people on petroleum technology, the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun (FUPRE), trained these people on petroleum and then the amnesty programme of 2008/2009,” he said.
The President aide said that the illegal refiners have technology, the ability, and wherewithal to engage in refining. While thanking the Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Nyesom Wike, for doing well in addressing the problem in Port Harcourt and the metropolis, he insisted that the problem goes beyond the city.
“The method that is being adopted in the course of the destruction is really polluting the environment and causing more damage to the environment. These people ‘refine’ and then they throw away the debris into the environment.
“But if you go and pour the remaining into the environment, you are re polluting and further worsening the situation. There should be a kind of controlled evacuation, such that the environment is not damaged, we are very concerned,” Enang explained.
As fallout from the meeting with the illegal refiners, Enang actually called on the upstream Petroleum Commission, Downstream and Midstream Regulatory Authority , and then the NNPC and the ministry of petroleum and the governments and institutions to agree to allocate this crude to these persons who will be allocated the refinery parks.
The former lawmaker argued that although the cost of diesel now is about N365 per litre, the “illegal” refiners sell for as little as N95 to N100, thereby extending their relevance. According to him, engaging them will remove the “illegal refiners” tag while providing legal jobs for them.
“They (illegal refiners) told us at the conference that if you give us the diesel, if you give us the crude, we will buy it and pay, but if you don’t give us, we will take and it will be a loss to you,” he said.
The NNPC former chief is not the only expressing concern over oil thieves in Nigeria’s oil value chain. Early last week, chairman of Heirs Oil and Gas, Tony Elumelu had shared a similar concern on rising oil theft in Nigeria.
Elumelu had informed that Nigeria lost over $4billion to oil thieves between January and September 2021. According to him, Nigeria produces sometimes, about 87,000barrels per day, whereas thieves take away 50,000 per day.”
In its 2019 report, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) said Nigeria in 2019 lost 42.25 million barrels of crude to theft valued at $2.77 billion. According to reports, Nigeria exports 1.3 million barrels per day as against the OPEC quota of 1.6 million.
Analysts say the 300 000 barrels not being met in the quota are stolen. This is even as the federal government struggles to fund its budget, relying so much on borrowing.
Chibisi Ohakah
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