The House of Representatives has continued its investigation of diverted and stolen crude oil in Nigeria valued at $20m, with its Ad Hoc Committee on Oil Theft grilling top officials of the Department of Petroleum Resources.

While the committee hosted the DPR at its investigative hearing in Abuja on Wednesday, it announced that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Central Bank of Nigeria had been summoned to appear before it on Thursday and Friday respectively.

Deputy Majority Leader of the House and Chairman of the committee, Mr Peter Akpatason, in his opening remarks, said the panel had gone through submissions from the various stakeholders in the sector.

“During the analysis, the committee made discoveries that require clarifications from major stakeholders. The committee had earlier scheduled to meet with the military. Due the recent changes of service chiefs, the meeting was postponed. On this, a new date will be communicated soon.

“Today, the committee is meeting with DPR, tomorrow and Friday, the committee shall be meeting NNPC and CBN, respectively.”

Akpatason said the committee was not set up witch hunt any person or organisation but to identify and proffer a lasting solution to the ‘lingering cancer bedevilling us as nation’.

He said, “The committee requested and obtained schedules of crude oil produced and lifting between 2005 to 2019.

“Forensic analysis of the data revealed a very wide margin between what was reported produced and what was lifted.

“Between 2005 and 2012, DPR reported production of 1,746,621,167 barrels from four (4) sampled oil terminals of Egeravos, Bonny, Forcados and Bonga.

“Out of this production volumes, only 1,417,200,848 barrels were accounted for as having been lifted officially. A whopping volume of 329,420,319 barrels, valued at over $20bn, could not be accounted for. The same trend of infractions was observed in the years 2016-2019.”

The Director/Chief Executive Officer of DPR, Mr Sarki Auwalu, said most of the theft occur on land terminals as pipelines were used to transport crude oil to export terminals.