The Nigerian Navy and the Federal Government’s Special Prosecution Team of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Petroleum Theft have uncovered a 40,000-litre-capacity illegal crude oil refinery in Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The facility was discovered on Friday during a joint operation involving personnel of the Nigerian Navy and the Inter-Agency Task Force at a creek in the Bonny waterways.
The operation followed actionable intelligence coordinated through the Joint Intelligence Monitoring Team, with personnel drawn from several security and intelligence agencies.
Speaking after the operation, the Commanding Officer of the Nigerian Navy Forward Operating Base, Bonny, Captain Stanley Umeh, described the discovery as the largest facility his team had uncovered since he assumed command in March 2026.
Umeh said the refinery, located deep inside the creeks, was still at the preparatory stage and had not commenced full-scale refining operations.
He said the size and structure of the facility indicated that it was being prepared for the large-scale theft and processing of crude oil.
“This discovery here is a product of long-time synergy between the base and other security agencies within the island and outside. It has been a product of actionable intelligence over time,” Umeh said.
“This is their preparatory stage. You could see from the build-up and the set-up of the illegal refinery, it’s meant to be a very big one that would see the siphoning or stealing of crude and brought here for cooking in large quantity.”
The naval officer said the discovery would contribute to ongoing efforts to curb crude oil theft and support increased crude oil production in the country.
“This discovery is a plus to the fight against crude oil theft in Nigeria, towards increasing the production or crude sales production in the country,” he said.
Umeh assured residents of Bonny that the Nigerian Navy would intensify surveillance and patrols across the waterways and remote areas of the local government.
He said the Navy maintained a policy of zero tolerance for crude oil theft and related illegal activities within Bonny and its maritime corridors.
“It’s been zero tolerance for us, both in and out of the waters. It’s been zero tolerance for this kind of illegalities within Bonny Local Government Area generally,” he said.
“It is also within the Chief of Naval Staff Strategic Directive that we ensure zero tolerance of all crude oil theft within our maritime corridors.”
Meanwhile, the Head of Investigation of the Special Prosecution Team of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Petroleum Theft, CSP Omar John Sini, said the team had secured 137 convictions for petroleum theft offences since its establishment in 2025.
Sini attributed the latest discovery to improved collaboration among intelligence, security and law-enforcement agencies.
According to him, the intelligence that led to the operation was provided by the Joint Intelligence Monitoring Team, led by Major General A.A. Idris under the supervision of the Chief of Defence Staff.
He explained that the Joint Intelligence Monitoring Team comprises personnel from several agencies, while the Special Prosecution Team is primarily responsible for investigating and prosecuting petroleum theft-related offences.
“As we were working as a team with them, by sheer providence, the commander, my elder brother here beside me, was also working. So you can imagine that when we put these two teams together, within no time, we deploy relevant technology, identify and track this location,” Sini said.
He said the objective of law enforcement was increasingly shifting towards preventing crimes before they occurred rather than responding after the fact.
“The primary purpose of law enforcement is to detect crime. We don’t even want it to occur so that we don’t be reactive, we want to be preventive,” he said.
Sini disclosed that three suspects allegedly linked to the financing of the illegal refinery were already in custody.
He said investigators had allowed the suspects to commit substantial resources to establishing the facility before law-enforcement agencies intervened.
“We’ve been able to detect; we allowed them to invest their money, their hard-earned resources, and they’ve built this refinery with an amount that would be running into millions of Naira,” he said.
He added that the site would be dealt with in accordance with existing laws, after which the suspects in custody would face prosecution.
Sini said the prosecution team would continue to pursue convictions for petroleum theft offences, with the aim of ensuring that penalties imposed by the courts serve as a deterrent to further criminal activity in the oil and gas sector.
