Nigeria loses $5 billion annually to oil theft, the head of Shell's Nigerian branch has said, the latest sign of a flourishing and organised black market for crude in Africa's largest oil producer. "Nigeria is losing at least $5 billion every year as a result of criminals stealing crude oil in the delta," Mutiu Sunmonu, managing director of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), told a meeting on Wednesday.
An SPDC spokesman confirmed the statement credited to Sunmonu in local media Thursday. He made the comments during a meeting in Abuja with the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, an industry watchdog. Sunmonu did not explain how he arrived at the figure. "If we don't stop this, I can guarantee you that the revenue from oil business to the government in particular will continue to dwindle," he said.
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