Nigeria is intensifying efforts to address the alarming scale of crude oil theft, identifying international and continental syndicates as key actors in the crime. The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Bayo Ojulari, revealed this during the opening session of the Africa Chiefs of Defence Staff Summit held in Abuja on Monday.

Ojulari warned that oil theft has evolved beyond a local challenge and should now be treated as a transnational crime requiring joint security and military cooperation across Africa. He emphasized that these illegal activities are driven by highly organized global networks that exploit weaknesses in national and continental security systems.

“Crude theft and its attendant illegal activities are by no means a purely localised occurrence; rather, these operations involve specialised international syndicates that take advantage of gaps within state, national and continental security architecture,” Ojulari told defence chiefs at the summit.

While Nigeria’s Niger Delta remains a primary hotspot, Ojulari stressed that the threat extends far beyond the country’s borders, demanding a coordinated continental response. He noted that collaborative measures between NNPCL and Nigerian security agencies have yielded significant results, reducing crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism drastically.

According to him, crude oil receipts at pipelines and terminals have surged from a mere 20–30 percent to nearly 100 percent in recent months, reflecting the impact of these operations.

The NNPCL CEO called for stronger partnerships among African nations through platforms such as the Abuja summit, stating that energy security is crucial to national and regional stability. “Security forms a key pillar of the energy business and therefore plays a very important and strategic role in achieving national, regional and continental energy security goals,” he said.

Ojulari’s remarks underscore the urgent need for African countries to adopt a united front against crude oil theft, treating it as a continental security issue that demands robust cross-border collaboration to protect vital energy resources.