Addis Ababa, October 29, 2021 (FBC) – Nigerian troops arrest nine suspects and deactivate 27 illegal oil refineries across the country’s Delta region during the past two weeks.
The military spokesman Bernard Onyeuko has said Thursday at a press conference in Abuja that many items were also recovered in the course of the operations carried out by the army between October 14 and October 28 in the oil-rich delta region.
“Also, five criminals associated with pipeline vandalism, piracy, illegal oil bunkering, and armed robbery were arrested within the period,” Onyeuko said.
The illegal refining sites had 57 ovens, 17 cooking pots or boilers, two cooling systems, 37 reservoirs, nine large dugout pits, and 27 storage tanks, drums, and sacks laden with some illegally refined oil products, he added.
A total of 788,500 liters of illegally refined automotive gas oil and 229,000 liters of stolen crude oil were recovered in the course of the operations, Onyeuko added.
In Nigeria, one of the largest oil exporters in Africa, illegal refining is a common practice among people in the delta region.
The dangerous practice involves boiling crude oil in drums to extract fuel, after vandalizing pipelines.
About a week ago, an unknown number of people were killed and several others injured from an explosion and fire at an illegal oil refinery in the Rumuekpe area of the southern state of Rivers, also located in the oil-rich region, a police spokesman said.
Source: Xinhua