The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has insisted that crude oil pipelines across the country must be metered, to curb oil theft.
It lamented that its demand for the metering of crude oil pipelines in the country had yet to be activated.
The Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, on Thursday, noted that metering oil pipelines would help to know the quantity of crude oil the country produced daily.
“It will be recalled that in rejigging our operations, we increased the surveillance over the pipeline infrastructures, we increased our cooperation with the stakeholders in the oil sector, and we also pushed for the metering of the pipeline so that we’ll know accurately what the nation is churning or daily.
“While this has not yet been put in place, I can say that for the surveillance of the pipelines and other military actions required in the area, we are receiving an increase in our crude oil production, as it has been noticed and reported”, he said.
Speaking in an interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday, Buba said the military insisted the metering must be done.
He said, “The metering is the responsibility of NNPC Limited. The military has insisted that it be done and the management of NNPC is in the process of implementation”.
The PUNCH reports that Nigeria is currently facing significant challenges due to oil theft, which is impacting economic growth.
The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Ogbonnaya Orji, stated that over N4.3 trillion worth of crude oil was lost to theft across 7,143 cases of pipeline vandalism over five years.
To enhance transparency in oil production and exports, the Federal Executive Council approved a $21 million contract on 13 July 2024, to install meters at 187 crude oil flow stations nationwide.
Efforts to get the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, the agency in charge of the meter installation, failed.
The spokesperson of the commission, Olaide Shonola, had promised to make her findings on the current stage of the installation and revert but was yet to do so as of the time of filing this report.
