Crude oil theft: ERA advocates transparent metering system to determine Nigeria’s oil production

Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has called for a transparent metering system to ascertain the actual volume of crude oil leaving every flow station in the country. Head, ERA Bayelsa Office, Comrade Alagoa Morris in a field report noted that this would go a long way in establishing the actual quantity of crude oil produced and lost daily. According to him, “though government officials estimates that Nigeria loses an average of 200,000 barrels of oil a day; more than 10 per cent of production to those tapping or vandalising pipelines.

But since there is no reliable statistics indicating total volume of crude oil extracted daily from the several oil wells or exported, it would be an effort in futility trying to quantify how much volume of crude oil that is either lost to kpofire operations, stolen and taken away from oil export terminals or what is spilled into the fragile Niger Delta ecosystem from the difference sources and causes. “This is why ERA/FoEN has advocated for a transparent metering system in the oil industry; to know actual volume of crude oil leaving every Flow station. 

“Until actual volume leaving every flow station is known and made public to stakeholders; whatever figures given is mere statistics and not actual representation of fact. The oil industry is not immune to the large scale corruption rocking the Nigerian society. Research has revealed that while those engaged in local refining are smaller thieves, the bigger thieves are at the oil export terminals where very large volumes of crude oil are stolen by way of under-valuing exported quantities. However, none of them is justified for the act, big, medium or small scale stealing; the crime is economic sabotage, hence our advocating   a transparent metering system to ascertain the actual volume of crude oil leaving every flow station in the country.”