Navy Accuses IOCs of Aiding Oil Theft

The Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin, has accused International Oil Companies (IOCs) of aiding and abetting all forms of criminality in the nation's maritime sector, especially crude oil theft, illegal bunkering and piracy. Jibrin stated this yesterday in Abuja during a meeting with chief executives of the IOCs at the naval headquarters' conference room to discuss issues on crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism and other related crimes in the nation's maritime sector. He expressed anger and frustration over the failure of most oil companies to treat the meeting with the seriousness it deserved, saying that it was meant to find solutions to the aforementioned challenges that had eaten deeply into the fabric of country's economy. The CNS stressed that the meeting was "conveyed to discuss some of the security challenges that we have in the maritime sector, particularly oil theft and illegal bunkering. When a meeting of this nature is called, the IOCs must take it very seriously. After all, it took me almost seven-and-a-half months to call for this meeting and specifically, we said we were not going to accept representation, not that those of you representing your various companies are not competent enough to discuss the issue, but to drive home the point we wish to make today. We want to make the point very clear that we have a serious challenge and we need the cooperation of the chief executives to be able to provide solutions to the daunting security challenges with respect to oil theft.

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