Caption: Director/CEO, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Engr. Sarki Auwalu.
Nine vessels with stolen Nigerian crude oil have been arrested by the Nigerian Navy in the coast of Niger Delta.
The Director/Chief Executive Officer of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Engr. Sarki Auwalu, stated this at an interactive session with the Nigerian and International journalists in Lagos on Wednesday.
According to him, “with the launching of Crude Oil & LNG Tracking (COLT) system, I can tell you we have recorded a remarkable result. As I’m speaking to you today, we have identified nine vessels that are under arrest with the Nigerian Navy, they are under Western Naval Command. Nine vessels as we speak even today.
“And we wrote to EFCC. We arrest several vessels, some of these vessels are for either oil thieves or other questionable characters. So we have achieved a lot and we are working with the Nigerian Navy whenever possible. We have intelligence committee that quickly alert the Nigerian Navy and give them the coordinates of the vessels and they go and arrest and conduct their investigation.”
He said investing in COLT is a great value for money.
In 2017, the DPR launched COLT with the aim to track crude oil production and vessels on the onshore and offshore of the country’s waterways and reduce the spate of crude oil theft in Nigeria.
According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Nigeria lost $41.9billion (N16.09trillion) to stolen refined crude oil products in 10 years (2009 – 2019).
