SAN FRANCISCO, October 14, (THEWILL) – The Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS Delta) on Tuesday said it arrested nine suspected oil thieves on board a self-propelled barge named MV Jochebed, laden with about 200,000 litres of a substance suspected to be stolen crude oil.
Commanding Officer of the NNS Delta, Navy Captain Musa Gemu, told THEWILL that the barge, MV Jochebed, and the crew members, were arrested in the northern part of Chevron’s operations in Warri South-West council area of Delta State on Sunday.
Giving a graphic details of the arrest, Navy Captain Gemu said; “The day before yesterday, our ships on patrol arrested MV Jochebed, a self-propelled barge, containing about 200,000 litres of substance suspected to be crude oil around Usan west of the northern part of the Chevron operations area.
“I want to believe it is in the Warri South-West local government area of Delta state. This is one of the series of arrests we have made in ensuring that we stop illegal bunkering or eradicate it completely.
“So far, we arrested about nine members of crew and they are all in the cell and they were arrested around 3am. One thing with them is that they are like a cartel, they will not tell you who their sponsors are, we always ask them, even those two last arrests, we interrogated them, they don’t tell you who is behind them”, the naval boss said.
Meanwhile, Navy Captain Gemu has expressed delight at the turn of events in his command’s fight against oil theft and other criminal activities around the oil and gas industry, saying about 870 illegal oil refineries had been destroyed within his area of operations since he assumed office.
“You are all witnesses to the fact that in recent times we have stopped going for destruction of illegal oil refineries within my area of responsibility.That is to tell you that we have destroyed all,” he said.
He added: “In so many places that we went, when you put the quantity together, in my area of operation we have destroyed up to about 870 illegal oil refineries within this short period of my tenure in office and you can see MV Jochebed is the latest in our series of arrest and we will continue to do that, as directed by the Chief of Naval Staff that there shall be zero tolerance for illegal bunkering.”
THEWILL recalls that NNS Delta had on September 18, arrested another set of 11 suspected oil thieves aboard a barge; MV Maga, laden with some 520 metric tons of crude around Dodo River, boundary between Delta and Bayelsa States.
