Staggering Numbers

If an estimated four million litres of cooked AGO is being sold per month, this amounts to a N1 billion (at a price of N250 for good quality AGO) loss to legitimate, tax-paying suppliers.

Multiply this by months and years and you get a picture of how much is being lost to illegal bunkerers not just in Brass, but across the Niger Delta. This is the root of the proliferation of illegal refineries in the region.

It is a running battle that the JTF in the region has made great strides in, but has not totally won.

In his remarks while handing over to his successor, Rear Admiral Suleiman affirmed that the operation under his command has destroyed and dislodged major militant camps in the Niger Delta, thereby boosting security in the region.

As a result, crude oil production in the country has risen steadily in the past couple of years to over two million barrels per day.

“When I came here in 2016, there were issues of militancy all over my joint operation area,” he said at the ceremony in Yenagoa. “But diligently, we have taken out the major militant camps in the Niger Delta region.”

He reeled out a number of militant camps and kidnapper bases that his troops routed and dislodged.

However, there is more to the winning the war against the economic saboteurs in the creeks than destroying their bases and illegal refineries. If there is no demand, there will be little incentive to cook these products.