Six illegal refineries with combined capacity to refine four million
litres of crude oil daily have been discovered by the Nigerian Navy, NAN reports.
According to Capt. Victor Choji, Executive Officer
of the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) Pathfinder Port Harcourt, the refineries
were discovered in Alakiri, Asari Toru Local Government Area of Rivers.
Choji, while destroying one of the illegal refineries on Thursday
said: “the refinery (in Alakiri) has capacity to produce one million
litres of refined petroleum products daily, while the five other
refineries have production-capacity of three million litres daily.”
Speaking on the operation that led to the discovery of the refineries, Choji said:
“This operation is focused on hitting the very heart of
their infrastructure, so that the operators do not have capacity to
regroup and resume their illicit activities.We realised that whenever we set ablaze the refineries without the
use of Swam Buggy machine, days after our troops leave the scene, the
oil thieves return and revive the refineries.So, the Navy came up with this strategy to ensure that the pipeline
network and metallic storage at the illegal facility are completely
crushed.We started siphoning petroleum products first before destroying the
illegal refineries as part of measures to eliminate soot in the
atmosphere.After siphoning the product, it is then taken out of the area and handed over to authorities for testing and analysis.”
The Naval chief said it will take about seven days for troops to move
the petroleum products and destroy the six illegal refineries.
Following the news of the destruction, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce,
representing Bayelsa East constituency, in a tweet said that instead of
destroying the refineries, they should have been handed over to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).