Nigeria loses 800,000 barrels of crude to theft, equipment failure

 

By Obiabin Onukwugha

The Nigerian government lost over 800,000 barrels of crude oil to theft and equipment failures between May 2024 to May 2025.

This is estimated at over N100million in revenue going by the current price of $78.62 per barrel of the Bonny Light at the international market.

During the period under review, there were about 18,311 recorded incidents, spiling 879,109.60 barrels of crude.

Data obtained from the Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor and the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, websites respectively, revealed that most of the spills went into water bodies and remained uncleaned or unremediated. The data also indicated that majority of the reported spills were linked to third party interference.

According to NOSDRA, the Nigerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC, recorded the highest number of spills with 328 incidents, losing 2,895 barrels. This was followed by the Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC with 286 incidents with a loss of 14, 469 barrels.

Heirs Energies Limited recorded 50 spills with 575 spilled barrels, while the NNPC Exploration and Production Ltd, NEPL had 47 incidents, losing 2,346 barrels of crude. OANDO lost 498 barrels in 42 incidents while SEPLAT lost 220 barrels in 40 incidents.

MPN recorded 30 incidents with a loss of 1 barrel, Heritage, 28 incidents, losing 438 barrels and Chevron recorded 17 incidents losing 59 barrels of crude, according to the data.

It also stated that ESSO recoding 8 incidents but no loss of crude, PPMC recorded 6 incidents losing 7 barreld Midwestern had 5 incidents, losing 2 barrels, TOTALENERGIES EP NIGERIA LIMITED recorded 4 and lost 1 Bbls, Platform had 4 spill incidents with no crude oil lost, ANTAN has 4 incidents with no crude oil lost, FOL had 3 incidents with 6 barrels of crude spilled, Aiteo E&P recorded 3 incidents with a loss of 331 barrels of crude, POOCN recorded 2 with 7 barrels of crude spilled, TOTAL had 2 incidents with 23 barrels spilled, NDWEST recorded 2 incidents losing 30 barrels of crude while Heirs Energies recorded 2 incidents losing 180 barrels of crude, according to the data.

GLOBALCOM lost 1 incident with no crude lost, FIRST recorded 1 spill with 1 barrel of crude lost, ERL recorded 1 spill, losing 10 barrels of crude, UERL recorded 1 spill but no crude was lost, TUPNI recorded 2 spill incident losing 1,258 barrels of crude, AMNI recorded 1 incident but no barrel of crude lost, SEEPCO recorded 1 incident, losing 15 barrels, NNPC Retail Limited had 1 spill incident but no crude was lost, nyd recorded 1 but lost 40 barrels, while SK BRIGHT recorded 1 spill but no oil was lost.

Furthermore, Belema E&P recorded 1 spill but no barrel of crude was lost, Neconde had 1 incident losing 5 barrels crude, Sterling Global recorded 1 spill, losing 1500 barrels, NPSC recorded 1 spill, losing 3900 barrels, NNPC EIGHTEEN OPERATING LIMITED 1 incident but no barrel of oil post, Oando plc recorded 1 spill, no barrel of oil lost, DANGOTE PETROLEUM REFINERY & PETROCHEMICAL recorded 1 incident, losing 503 barrels,  IHS (NIGERIA) LIMITED recorded 1, losing 3 barrels, while IHS Nigeria Limited recorded 1 incident, losing 7 according to the data.

The Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor, stared in its website that there are around 932 publicly available oil spill records in 2024. 45 of these oil spill sites were not visited by a Joint Investigation team and 426 of these had no estimated quantity of oil spilled provided by the company.

It said based on reports available 29,328.564 barrels of oil (4,633,913.045 litres) were spilled. That’s around 147 oil tanker trucks full.

Again, 2 Major oil spills (over 250 barrels spilled into inland waters, or over 2,500 barrels spilled on land, swamp, shoreline and open sea) in 2024.

It further stated that 476 Minor oil spills (up to 25 barrels spilled into inland waters, or 250 barrels spilled on land, swamp, shoreline and open sea). 358 of these were under 10 barrels in size, while 430 oil spills could not be categorised.

The Nigerian oil spill monitor mentioned that a total of 692 spill incidents were recorded with 25223.58 barrels of crude spilled in 2024. It added that most of the oil spills according to the data were caused by third party interference in 2024.

The data by NOSDRA also indicated that most of the spills occurred in Delta and Rivers states. As of May 2025, NOSDRA only recorded one spill from NNPC Exploration and Production Ltd (NEPL) with an estimated 17 barrels of oil spilled and one spill from Seplat Petroleum Development Company Limited with an estimated spill of 5.8 barrels of crude totalling 22.80 barrels of crude loss.

This is contrary to available reports by volunteer organisations.  Between March to May, no fewer than 10 oil spills have been reported by Volunteers of the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre, YEAC-NIGERIA in different local governments of Rivers State, including Ahoada East, Ahoada West, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Gokana, Eleme, amongst others.

Also, the Environmental Defenders Network, reported an oil spill at Ogboinbiri community in Bayelsa State.

Recently, Shell Plc revealed that its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), the operator of the SPDC joint venture, reported 20 operational spill incidents of more than 100 kilograms of crude oil in 2024.

The figure which was contained in its 2024 Annual Report and Accounts of Shell Plc, states that this represents a 122% increase when compared to the 9 spill incidents that were reported in 2023.

The report stated that the increase in the number of operational spill incidents was largely because of a rise in cases of failure due to factory defects in a locally manufactured clamp used in pipeline repairs following the removal of illegal connections.

According to the report, in 2024, the volume of operational spills of oil and oil products was 0.37 thousand tonnes compared with 0.005 thousand tonnes reported in 2023.

The majority (89%) of the 2024 volume, according to Shell relates to two significant incidents, one onshore on the Trans Niger Pipeline and the other offshore at a terminal loading buoy.