Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd), has revealed that the firm has demolished more than 600 illegal refineries and eliminated 5,800 illegal connections to Nigeria’s crude oil pipelines within the past two years.
Kyari made this disclosure during a stakeholder engagement session between the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists and the NNPCL in Lagos over the weekend.
He emphasized the importance of addressing security challenges in the oil and gas sector to boost production.
The Group CEO highlighted the critical role of combating insecurity in enhancing oil production, stressing that the security challenges in onshore assets pose significant obstacles to increasing production and delivering oil to the market.
Kyari stated, “How do you increase oil production? Remove the security challenges in our onshore assets. As we all know, the security challenge is real. It is not just about theft; it is about the availability of the infrastructure to deliver the volume to the market.”
He added, “No one will invest in oil production when he knows the production will not reach the market. Within the last two years, we have removed over 5,800 illegal connections from our pipelines and over 600 illegal refineries—cooking pots or whatever they were. You simply cannot get people to invest in it until you solve that problem.”
