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The 6 Division, Nigeria Army, Port Harcourt, has uncovered 14 crude oil reservoirs containing about three million litres of stolen crude in Odagwa Etche in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Also, the Army said the reservoir has 49 boilers used in refining stolen crude in the area, which is then moved out through various channels.
The General Officer Commanding, 6 Division, Nigeria Army, Port Harcourt, Maj-Gen. Jamal Abdussalam, while conducting newsmen around the reservoirs located in the thick forest of Odagwa Etche on Thursday, said his decision to bring the journalists to the scene was for them to see things for themselves so that Nigerians will know what is happening.
Abdusalam disclosed that through credible intelligence, officers of the division were able to discover about 14 reservoirs that contained upward of about 200,000 litres of crude oil inside the forest.
Abdusalam said the suspects constructed various tanks and used hoses and cables to connect crude oil from abandoned wellheads located within the area.
He said, “You can see that this place is in a deep forest. Even if you are using helicopters and military drones, you will not be able to see what we actually saw here on the ground. We have discovered based on credible intelligence which led us to this location.
“We have discovered many illegal activities. As you can see, we have seen reservoirs that can contain upwards of 200, 0000 litres of crude oil.
‘We have discovered about 14 of them in this bush. We have also discovered boilers capable of processing crude oil about 49 of them all located inside this bush and we have seen the network of hoses and cables connected around the whole area.”
“Here, we discovered 14 reservoirs and each reservoir stored a minimum of 200,000 litres of crude oil. So simple math will give you in excess of three million litres of crude oil that is stored. We are not talking of the ones that have been processed and taken out; these are the ones that we have discovered.
“This place is called Odagwa in Rivers State and inside this place we have well heads, many of them we don’t know the exact number of well heads around here.”
The GOC added that “most of them are not in use, but you can see that it’s from these well heads that these people put their pipes to siphon this oil. Few arrests have been made however, those that we have arrested are not the major players in this business, they are just carriers of the stolen oil.”
He said the discovery was part of the Army’s efforts to ensure that the government gets what is due to it.
“The budget has been sent by Mr President to the National Assembly and the National Assembly has passed it into law and the executive has also signed it and it has become law.
“That budget was planned based on some parameters. One of the parameters is the crude oil production we churn out every day. So any drop in crude oil production affects everybody in this country.
“Our people are not aware of that and that is why they are involved in this type of business,” he explained.