We Will Track Down How Oil Vessels Are Being Diverted – FG
Oru Leonard
The federal government said it is set to track down the total oil outputs and vessels in the country.
The Minister of state for petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, made this known during the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit.
Kachikwu said federal government would also partner with anti-graft agencies to curb the lingering presence of oil theft in the country
The federal government has expressed its commitment to tracking down the crude oil output, adding that for the first time it could now ascertain the exact quantity of barrels of crude oil produced in the country.
In his address at the just concluded Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS 2019) in Abuja on Wednesday, January 30, the minister said that government was ready to form a synergy with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to track vessels responsible for lifting crude oil from the country.
The minister, who noted that federal government had noticed gross irregularities in the vessels lifting crude oil, said data tracking mechanism has been deployed by the government to monitor the volume of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) brought by vessels into the country.
“For the first time, we know what we are producing in this country. As to when it is being produced, barrel to barrel, we can tell. We can see even vessels that are coming into Nigeria and their activities” he said.
”We have seen some vessels go to a location and pick some cargoes, leave that point, go to another point pick something else and return to the first location, when they should be heading to Port Novo or the United States.”
“So for the first time, we are going to soon be able to tell on a day-by-day basis all the activities that took place in the sector and those of the players. We are even going to extend it to the downstream.”
Mr Kachikwu also said that the country needed to find away to provide adequate petroleum products to sufficiently meet the needs of its citizens and at the same time to be able to free the sector for growth.
