The Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) says 84 illegal refineries and 66 illegal connections have been discovered in the past week in the Niger Delta region.
In a tweet on the NNPCL X handle late Tuesday, it wrote: “In the past week, 66 illegal pipeline connections and 84 illegal refineries have been uncovered in the Niger Delta”.
Oil theft is a major problem in Nigeria, an OPEC member and one of the continent’s largest petroleum producers.
Accidents and spills are common in the makeshift refineries hidden in swamps in the Niger Delta, where smugglers tap into pipelines to steal crude and refine it into fuel for sale.
Crude oil is tapped from a web of pipelines owned by major oil companies and refined into products in makeshift tanks.
According to industry sources, Nigeria loses around 200,000 barrels of crude to oil thieves, vandals and illegal refining operators daily.
Most people in the Niger Delta live in poverty even though the country is the biggest oil producer on the continent, with an output of around two million barrels per day.
