Rear Admiral Mustapha Hassan has emphasized the importance of the international community joining forces to reject stolen crude oil.
“We should push for stolen crude not to be accepted by foreign state actors,” the Flag Officer Commanding Western Naval Command, Nigerian Navy, said on Channels Television’s breakfast show, Sunrise Daily, on Tuesday.
He also called for the deactivation of about 1,000 oil wells abandoned by International Oil Companies in the Niger Delta area, while urging the judiciary to speed up judgments in the cases of arrested oil thieves.
The top military official said petroleum regulatory organisations should compel international oil companies to deactivate oil wells after operations.
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Rear Admiral Hassan said stolen oil in Nigeria is usually taken out of the country and refined somewhere.
“This shows the involvement of foreigners in Nigeria’s oil theft. So, there’s a need for the international community to start rejecting stolen oil,” he said.
