GROUP General Manager, GGM, National Petroleum Investment Management Services, NAPIMS, Bala Wunti, has said there is close collaboration among oil bunkerers, security officials, communities, and others in breaching the nation's crude oil pipeline to steal crude oil.
Speaking to reporters after the evaluation of the recent illegal connections on the trans-Escravos pipeline in Delta state, he said: "We discover there is a noteworthy collaboration between the players; between the communities; between the security agencies; and between everybody in the space.
"What I can tell you is that they have discovered a meaningful number of illegal connections; what you saw are the recent discoveries made by Tantita Security Services Limited, and you just heard the theory they are working on. Illegal connections on the Trans -Escravos pipeline connected to a test line that ought not to have carried crude.
"The theory is that the test line is delivering crude back into Afremo and from Afremo, this crude is being stolen through barges, this is what the security report says.
"We are here to validate that the entire security infrastructure that we have, led by the CDS and the GCOs is all in place.
"We feel very comfortable in line with our transparency agenda to bring everybody to see what we are doing and together we will discover the truth and when we discover the truth, we will apply the law with no exception.
"What you heard from the CDS is that government will spare nobody, whoever has anything to do with this, it will follow any legitimate means to bring the parties to book.
"Let me say that there are two kinds of losses that we suffered because of this incident. There are actual losses where they steal the crude oil that we produce and there is the impact of debarment - our inability to produce the crude that we ought to produce and which ought to have gone to the nation's treasury."
"The combination of that current, which we estimate at 700,000 barrels per day are lost both in terms of opportunity loss and in terms of actual loss.We will not leave any stone unturned, we will do what we will do, if the operator needs help, we will give him help, and if he does not need help, we hold him accountable to do the right thing."
