Kyari said that the surveillance deal was yielding good returns for Nigeria, and maintained that the huge amount spent to secure the services of Tompolo’s firm was so insignificant quantum of the value of oil stolen in recent times in the country.
Kyari noted: The scale of oil theft that we have seen was not anticipated, not expected, not thought of. The scale is enormous. We have seen pipelines taken from our main trunklines into abandoned platforms in which people come to steal oil.
“We have seen the thousands of illegal refineries that we have taken down in the last 4 -5 months . We have seen up to 295 illegal connections to our pipelines and many of them have been there for years. Companies would top injecting oil if they discover it can’t get to the terminals.”
Kyari restated NNPC’s commitment to energy security, saying as things stand, it is left with no option other than to sustain the subsidy regime to make fuel affordable to Nigerians.
Stating that NNPC is on the trajectory of changing systems and processes, he admitted that the NNPC haven’t been able to meet its tax obligation due to the stark realities of the subsidy regime operational in the country.
He added: “Today when PMS comes into this country, you transfer to the marketers at N113 for us to realize N165 at the pump. This is the reality. That means whatever is the cost anything outside that value is subsidy.
”So somebody has to pay for it. There is nowhere today you can land a liter to the pumps even at the N419 exchange rate at least than N400 per liter. It’s not possible. So every difference between N113 and that value is subsidy.
“That means in some instance we have been subsidizing up to N290. And in this regime it is impossible for you to avoid all the wrong things that ate happening -round tripping, cross border smuggling, documents forgery, anywhere tou have arbitrage you have this issue. So for as long as arbitrage is there you would continue to have this challenges.”