Nigeria’s efforts to protect its natural resources are showing positive results, with crude theft significantly decreasing in recent months.

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), while presenting to the Investment Monitoring Committee of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) in Abuja, shared data from the first quarter of 2025.

According to this data, crude theft reduced from 12,000 barrels daily in the last two years to 5,000 barrels daily in Q1, 2025.

This represents a 58.3% decrease and validates the government’s initiative to end crude oil theft in Nigeria.

FG takes action against crude theft

At its peak, crude oil theft in Nigeria reached alarming levels, with up to 108,000 barrels stolen daily in Q1 2022, and as much as 300,000 barrels per day at other times.

The activities of well-organised syndicates of vandals fueled unauthorised tapping of crude oil pipelines and illegal bunkering.

There were theories suggesting that these illegal activities had become the mainstay of idle and unemployed youths in the Niger-Delta region.

Beyond the loss of billions of dollars, the impact of crude theft was far-reaching, affecting farmlands and waterbodies and disrupting livelihoods for many others.

This Day reports that the federal government took action to tackle the theft by collaborating with stakeholders and deploying military forces and joint security operatives to protect the oil infrastructure.

The government implemented surveillance technologies and pipeline monitoring systems to detect breaches, while NUPRC improved regulatory oversight by upgrading metering systems and installing tamper-proof infrastructure to track production volumes.

FG targets 2.7 mbpd as crude production increases

As crude theft declines, Nigeria’s oil production has steadily increased from 1.5 million bpd to 1.7 million bpd.

Efforts are ongoing to raise production by another 1 million bpd, with a target of 2.7 million bpd across the oil-producing assets.

The report also highlighted that 235 oil fields, 2,176 oil wells, and 125 gas wells are currently in production.

The NUPRC Executive Commissioner for Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning, Babajide Fashina, who represented the Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe, added that the commission is working to ensure compliance with global best practices.

The RMAFC committee awarded NUPRC a five-star rating for its role in improving revenue generation and providing accurate regulatory data.

Nigeria lost over 700 million barrels of crude to oil thieves

In related news, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) says Nigeria made over $831.14 billion from Oil & Gas within 24 years.

This is despite a loss of over 701 million barrels of crude oil to thieves within nine years.

NEITI has also called for infrastructural development in Nigeria’s gas sector and greater focus on solid minerals exploration.