Large Volumes Of Stolen Crude Recovered As Nigerian Navy Takes Down Five Illegal Refining Sites

• The federal government has been carrying out several reforms to stop crude oil theft and improve the daily crude production in Nigeria
• One of these operations from the Nigerian Navy has yielded results, with massive volumes of products recovered from five illegal refining sites
• Similarly, the NNPC carried out a series of operations, cracking down on 55 illegal refineries in one week and recovering huge volumes of crude

Legit.ng journalist Ruth Okwumbu-Imafidon has over a decade of experience in business reporting across digital and mainstream media.

Operators involved in illegal oil refining in Nigeria have taken a major hit from the Nigerian Navy in a recent operation.

Operators of the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) Pathfinder have carried out an operation which led to the discovery and dismantling of five illegal refining sites.

The sites were found at the Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area (ONELGA) of Rivers State.

This is a major achievement to tackle crude oil theft perpetrated by well-organised syndicates of vandals, costing Nigeria millions of barrels over the years.

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.

List of recovered petroleum products

Providing a breakdown of the operation, the Nigerian Navy reported that it had discovered massive illegal bunkering activities at the sites. Some of the facilities discovered at the sites include:

• 62 ovens
• 21 reservoirs
• 55 dugout pits containing 50,000 litres of suspected stolen crude oil
• 83,000 litres of illegally refined Automotive Gas Oil (AGO)
• 20,000 litres of illegally-refined kerosene.

Commodore Cajethan Nnabuchi Aniaku, Commander of NNS Pathfinder, announced that the operation was conducted on June 14, 2025, by NNS Pathfinder’s Tactical Riverine Assault Squadron Team.

He noted that thanks to the credible intelligence received, the operation was successful and the illegal refining sites have been taken down, the GUARDIAN reports.

According to Aniaku, the products seized from the sites have been handled in line with the anti-crude oil theft procedures.

He added that no arrests were made from the operations as the perpetrators had fled the scene.

Commodore Aniaku pledged that under the leadership of the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, more operations would be carried out to secure Nigeria’s resources and combat illegal activities that threaten the economy.

Crude oil theft reduced by 58%

Note that 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 by 58%, from 12,000 barrels daily in the last two years to 5,000 barrels daily in Q1 2025.

Nigeria loses over 700 million barrels to crude thieves

Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) stated that Nigeria had lost over 701 million barrels of crude oil to thieves in nine years.

Despite the loss, Nigeria still made over $831.14 billion from oil and gas within 24 years, counting from when NEITI started keeping records.

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

Source: Legit.ng