The Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, and the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, have visited the point at which illegal insertions were made at the Trans-Escravos pipeline in the Yokiri area of Delta State for the stealing of crude oil.
A report had put the daily volume of crude stolen at 250,000 barrels, said to be worth $700 million in the market.
Irabor and Kyari visited the point on Friday with a promise to investigate the development and bring culprits to book.
The CDS said: “This is an eye-opener and I’m glad that I’ve come here.
“This is really very sad and we are going to get to the root of it all.
“There will be an investigation that will go through the entire length of the chain to establish who did this and how long it has been, among several other issues.”
Kyari told newsmen: “The attachment on our Trans-Escravos line, that illegal connection, is professionally done.
“And the end result is they connected this to an inactive test line which should never carry crude under normal circumstances.
“And we have seen that this line flows all the way, parallel to the other two active lines, into the Afremo platform.
“And we think this is a good revelation.
“Anyone involved in this process, whether from the community members, our community contractors, government security agencies, workers of the oil companies, including NNPC and Shell, anyone that is involved with this will be dealt with by the law.”
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