Government and security agencies must tell Nigerians who is behind oil theft – Elumelu

Tony Elumelu, founder and chairman of Heirs Energies, an oil and gas company, says Nigeria’s government and security agencies should be able to tell Nigerians who is stealing the country’s crude oil.

Elumelu spoke in an interview published Friday by the Financial Times (FT).

Elumelu said the oil theft has contributed to the divestment of international oil companies in Nigeria.

“Who is behind the theft, I wonder. It is a question that has confused many Nigerians,” he said.

“This is oil theft, we are not talking about stealing a bottle of coke that you can put in your pocket.

“The government should know, they should tell us. Look at America — Donald Trump was shot and they quickly knew the background of who shot him. Our security services should tell us who is stealing our oil. You bring ships into our territorial waters and we don’t know?”

In 2010, Elumelu founded Heirs Holdings, an investment company.

In 2021, the business magnate decided to buy a 45 percent stake in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 17.

Speaking to FT about buying an oil asset in an era of energy transition, Elumelu said the company wanted to become a Fortune 500 company and “we assessed what we needed”.

“It is not about naira, it is about huge dollars. Energy security is crucial for a country that does not produce enough electricity for its approximately 200 million citizens,” he said.

Elumelu said Heirs Holdings had been looking for an oil field since 2017 and had raised $2.5 billion for the purpose.

However, he said former President Muhmmadu Buhari and his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, “blocked the deal”.

Elumelu said he was told that Nigeria could not allow something of such strategic importance to fall into the hands of a private operator.

This, the businessman said, defied all logic, since he had bought it from a foreign company.

Elumelu said he soon discovered first-hand why international oil companies (IOCs) partially scaled back their investments in onshore assets after criminal gangs began stealing crude oil from its pipelines.

In 2022, when the situation had reached the point where his company had to shut down production, Elumelu vented his frustration on social media, tweeting: “How can we lose over 95% of oil production to thieves?”

On July 2, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited declared a state of emergency on crude oil production.

Making the announcement, Mele Kyari, Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of NNPC, said war has been declared on the challenges facing Nigeria’s crude oil production.

Kyari said the national oil company has the right tools, “knows what to fight against” and what “to do at the asset level”.

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