The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation will collaborate with law enforcement agencies and other relevant downstream and upstream stakeholders to tackle petroleum products smuggling and crude oil theft.
The law enforcement agencies include the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Department of State Services, Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Customs Service and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.
Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mele Kyari, said this move was on the backdrop of a charge by President Muhammadu Buhari who mandated the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NNPC, EFCC and all other security agencies to do everything to stop crude oil theft and illicit truck-out of petroleum products.
The corporation’s boss described the menace as major economic crimes that had hindered Nigerians from enjoying the benefits of subsidised petroleum products.
He urged all industry stakeholders to collaborate with the corporation to ensure that the daily national petroleum products consumption which shot up to 102 million litres in the month of May was brought down to realistic levels of around 60 million litres.
He was quoted as saying, “We all agree that smuggling is not a business that should be condoned because even for deregulated petroleum products, it brings extra cost burden on this country both in terms of safety and security of supply and in securing of foreign exchange.
“It even constitutes more burden to this country when the product involved is a regulated product like Premium Motor Spirit.”
