The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, said the firm has destroyed over 600 illegal refineries in the last two years.
Kyari disclosed this during a stakeholder engagement between the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists and the NNPCL in Lagos, at the weekend.
He noted that the firm removed 5,800 illegal connections to Nigeria’s crude oil pipelines in the last two years.
According to him, the country is prospecting 1.7 million barrels per day in the coming months, up from April’s 1.28 mbpd.
The NNPCL boss also emphasised the need to fight insecurity in the oil and gas sector to increase production.
“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.