Oscarline Onwuemenyi
22 September 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Nigeria government has said it would start conducting deoxyribonucleic acid finger-printing of the country’s crude oil to apprehend criminals by the end of the year.
The Minister for Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, made this known during the inauguration of an ultra-modern Bio-Resources Laboratory and Feeding Mill Complex in Odi, Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
According to Onu, once the facilities are ready, oil theft will become a thing of the past.
The minister said, “I feel very happy with this ultra-modern laboratory. For me, Nigeria is changing. With this capacity here now, we will be able to do many things.
“I just gave them instruction that by the end of this year, we should have finger-printing of our crude oil.
“With this measure, if anybody steals our crude oil, the government will be able to identify it, because even crude oil can have fingerprints and with the equipment, we have here, we can do it in Nigeria.”
Recall that earlier in the week, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, had said the federal government was concerned about the growing incidences of crude theft and was working on finding a solution.
He also stressed that the government would from next year be better able to monitor the amount of crude produced in the country.
Writing on twitter platform while answering questions on ‘New Media Chat with Dr. @IbeKachikwu, Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources’, the minister said that, “Nobody is afraid of oil extraction metering. We’re currently working on a holistic solution with DPR (Department of Petroleum Resources) to address the problem.”
He added that “The holistic solution will involve implanting metering across the board. The 2018 budget will make a provision for this process.”
The minister added that “Volume of extraction is relatively known but a holistic metering solution will provide more exactness, numerically.”
