The Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the country’s oil industry auditors has said that Three of Nigeria’s foreign oil partners — Shell, Eni and Chevron — recorded a total loss of about 160 million barrels of crude oil with an export value of $13.7 billion to crude oil theft from 2009-12.
Nigeria also lost about $1.1 billion through the crude swap for oil products program by state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) over the same period, the statement quoted NEITI Executive Secretary Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed as saying.
Oil theft remains a major headache for the government and foreign companies operating in the country. President Muhammadu Buhari said on July 21 that Nigeria loses around 250,000 b/d of its oil production to theft, amounting to lost revenue of $10 billion-$20 billion a year and depriving the country of much-needed income that could have been deployed to develop social infrastructure.
The NEITI head also reiterated that NNPC had yet to remit the $11.6 billion, dividend to the Federation Account from the exports by the Bonny LNG plant.
