295 illegal connections to NNPC’s pipelines uncovered
No fewer than 295 illegal connections to pipelines of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited have been discovered.
This was made known by the company’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Mallam Mele Kyari, during a Legislative Transparency & Accountability Summit in Abuja, on Wednesday.
“We have seen thousands of illegal refineries that we have taken down in the last 45 months. We have seen connection in a 200 kilometre line. we have up to 295 illegal connections to our pipelines and many of them have been there for years,” Kyari said.
The summit was organised by the House of Representatives Anti-Corruption Committee with the theme, ‘Enhancing Transparency & Accountability in the Oil & Gas Sector’.
Kyari said as a result of oil theft, production equally came down to about 1.1 million barrels from 1.8 million about January of last year.
He, however, made it clear that not all the oil were stolen, explaining that “companies will stop injecting oil into the pipeline the moment they discover that they cannot get to the terminal”.
