25th August 2025
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Bashir Ojulari has said that oil theft is not a localised crime but a sophisticated operation requiring cross-border collaboration to tackle effectively.
He stated that crude oil theft across Africa is driven by specialized international and continental gangs exploiting security lapses
The NNPC boss stated this on Monday in Abuja at the opening of the Africa Chief of Defence Staff Conference.
According to Ojulari, “Crude theft and its attendant illegal activities are by no means a purely localised occurrence; rather, these operations involve specialised international syndicates that take advantage of gaps within the state, national and continental security architecture to conduct illegal activities.”
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He commended the efforts of security agencies stating that crude theft and pipeline vandalism, especially within the oil-rich Niger Delta area of Nigeria, have become old occurrences.
He emphasised that, “Security forms a key pillar of the energy business and therefore plays a very important and strategic role in achieving national, regional and continental energy security goals.”
As the head of the largest national oil company on the continent, Ojulari, said, “We have seen the benefit of the collaboration within the energy space, with significant improvement in our operating environment” and increased crude oil output.
