Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), has revealed that the company has demolished over 600 illegal refineries in the past two years.
Kyari made this revelation during a stakeholder engagement session between the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists and the NNPCL in Lagos over the weekend.
He highlighted that the company has dismantled 5,800 illegal connections to Nigeria’s crude oil pipelines within the same timeframe.
Kyari further stated that the country is projecting a daily production of 1.7 million barrels in the upcoming months, a significant increase from April’s 1.28 million barrels per day.
The NNPCL CEO also underscored the importance of tackling insecurity in the oil and gas sector to enhance production levels.
“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.
“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,” he stated.
