CBN laments 95% loss of daily oil output
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Petroleum Resources Minister of State Timipre Sylva has sketched a plan involving communities, security agencies, and oil firms to tackle oil theft which the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has now acknowledged depletes external reserves.
Nigeria loses 150,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) through theft which boils down to $4 billion per year in a revenge game in the Niger Delta where residents think wrongly they must steal their own cut from the national cake Abuja officials loot.
CBN Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) admitted at its latest meeting the negative impact of oil theft on the economy, as stated in a communique CBN Godwin Emefiele read out to journalists in Abuja.
“The committee noted, with grave concern, the unprecedented rate of oil theft recorded in recent times and its debilitating impact on government revenue and accretion to reserves,” he announced.
He said the MPC is hopeful that in the medium term, the plan by Dangote Refinery to begin operation later this year would raise petroleum products supply.
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Lack of energy supply
The MPC noticed that the rising price of fuel is exacerbated by a lack of energy supply which stokes up the prices of goods and services, Emefiele added, according to reporting by Nairametrics.
“MPC advises the CBN management and the fiscal authorities to take specific and urgent actions to avoid many power generating stations shutdown for turn-around maintenance, resulting in the current unwarranted shutdown of generating assets.”
The MPC also evaluated multiple interventions by the CBN to increase productivity in manufacturing, industry, agriculture, energy, infrastructure, healthcare, and micro, small, and medium firms.
Emefiele said the CBN disbursed N29.67 billion under its Anchor Borrowers’ Program (ABP) between January and February 2022 for the procurement of inputs and the planting of maize, rice, and wheat – three previous major sources of foreign exchange (forex) demand.
“These disbursements bring the total under the programme to over 4.52 million smallholder farmers, cultivating 21 commodities across the country, comes to a total of N975.61 billion.”
Views of other stakeholders
Seplat Energy founding Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer Austin Avuru disclosed last week that 80 per cent of the output from some oil wells do not get to terminals due to theft, and canvassed for a national emergency in the oil sector.
UBA Banking Group and Heirs Holdings Chairman Tony Elumelu has also blamed theft for Nigeria’s inability to meet its crude oil production quota and benefit from high oil prices.
He said Nigeria is losing 95 per cent of oil production to thieves, citing Bonny terminal that receives less than 3,000 barrels per day when it is supposed to receive over 200,000 barrels.