Oil theft in the Niger Delta: The shift nobody’s talking about
By Shobo O.A Jim Swartz doesn’t do hyperbole. As chairman of Chevron Nigeria, he’s seen it all. Decades of oil theft, pipeline sabotage, and production losses that would bankrupt smaller
By Shobo O.A
Jim Swartz doesn’t do hyperbole. As chairman of Chevron Nigeria, he’s seen it all. Decades of oil theft, pipeline sabotage, and production losses that would bankrupt smaller nations. So when he said in December 2025 that Chevron recorded zero oil theft for an entire year, it wasn’t corporate spin. It was a declaration that something fundamental had shifted in Nigeria’s oil sector.
The question nobody’s asking: how did we get here?
The answer most Nigerians don’t know: Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited.
Let’s rewind. Nigeria lost $22.4 billion to oil thieves in 2022 alone. Not over a decade. One year.
By September 2022, production had collapsed to 1.015 million barrels per day, the lowest on record. Thieves weren’t siphoning drops from pipelines. They were draining 700,000 barrels daily while Nigeria’s entire production crumbled to between 400,000 and 700,000 barrels.
The math was obscene: criminals were stealing more oil than Nigeria could produce.
Tony Elumelu put a face to the crisis. His oil company produced 58,000 barrels daily. Thieves took 97% of it. Ninety-seven percent. He was left with scraps while syndicates got rich.
In August 2022, the federal government made a move that looked reckless: awarding a pipeline surveillance contract to Tantita Security Services, led by High Chief Government Ekpemupolo (Tompolo), a former Niger Delta militant.
Critics erupted. How do you trust a former militant with national security?
The government’s logic was brutal in its simplicity: nothing else worked.
Military operations failed. Conventional security contractors failed. International consultants failed. The bleeding wouldn’t stop.
So they tried something radical. They hired people who knew the creeks, spoke the language, and understood that oil theft wasn’t just crime—it was a symptom of decades of neglect in oil-producing communities.
From August 2022 to November 2024, Tantita discovered 3,963 incidents. They uncovered 702 illegal connection points. Destroyed 1,784 illegal refineries involving 3,063 facilities. Seized 1,743 wooden boats, 8 vessels, 117 vehicles, 52 tanker trucks.
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Seventeen hundred and forty-three wooden boats.
This wasn’t petty theft. This was industrial-scale organized crime with supply chains that would impress multinational corporations.
The results came fast. Oil theft dropped 79% between 2022 and 2023. Production surged from 1.015 million barrels in September 2022 to 1.8 million by July 2025.
By mid-2025, crude oil losses fell to 9,600 barrels per day—the lowest since 2009. A 98.6% reduction from the 700,000-barrel daily haemorrhage of 2022.
Elumelu’s company? Oil theft dropped from 97% to 2%. Chevron? Zero theft in 2025.
At prices of $73 per barrel, Nigeria went from losing $51.1 million daily to losing $700,800 daily. That’s saving $50.4 million every single day. Over a year? $18.4 billion recovered.
Money now funding hospitals, schools, roads, and salaries instead of enriching criminal syndicates.
Tantita operatives didn’t stop thieves with PowerPoint presentations. They fought in creeks, swamps, and darkness against armed criminals and corrupt officials.
People died. Tantita workers lost their lives securing Nigeria’s economic future while most of us argued about Big Brother and Instagram trends.
April 2024: Tantita pursued and arrested tugboat “Aya Oba Olori II” being escorted by a marine police boat laden with illegal diesel. Even law enforcement was complicit.
January 2024: They intercepted MT Kali loaded with thousands of metric tonnes of stolen crude, arresting 23 crew members.
The seizures came weekly. Sometimes daily. This was warfare, not policing.
Captain Warredi Enisuoh, Tantita’s Executive Director, revealed something chilling at a 2024 oil conference: “I get, on average, three calls a week from people overseas saying their refineries are about to shut down because they can’t steal crude the way they used to.”
Foreign refineries. Calling a Nigerian security contractor. Complaining they can’t access stolen Nigerian crude anymore.
That’s not just theft. That’s an international conspiracy that Tantita dismantled.
Tantita deployed VTOL drones for real-time pipeline monitoring. But technology alone doesn’t win in the Niger Delta. They hired from the communities. Locals who knew every creek, every hideout, every player. They understood that oil theft was fuelled by genuine grievances about underdevelopment and unemployment.
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You can’t just enforce. You have to engage. Tantita got that.
The irony is poetic: former militants now guard the pipelines they once sabotaged. And they’re better at it than anyone else because nobody knows the terrain like they do.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited reported N905 billion profit after tax in June 2025. Oil sector growth hit 6.79% in Q4 2025, the strongest since Q4 2023.
Nigeria recorded over $10 billion in new oil and gas investments by mid-2024. Investors notice when a country stops bleeding billions to criminals.
Production targeting 2.7 million barrels per day by 2027 isn’t fantasy anymore. It’s achievable because the infrastructure is finally secure.
Is Tantita perfect? No. Allegations of bad actors exist. Legal challenges persist. Political pressure is constant. But here’s what matters: the numbers work. Production is up. Theft is down. Revenue is flowing. The economy is stabilizing.
Over 23 years (2002-2025), Nigeria lost approximately $25.7 billion to oil theft—roughly 72% of the entire 2025 budget. Tantita stopped that bleeding.
They proved Nigeria can solve Nigerian problems with Nigerian solutions. No foreign consultants required.
While we debated fuel subsidies and argued about elections on Twitter, Tantita operatives were in the creeks facing armed criminals to secure the infrastructure that funds 70% of Nigeria’s budget.
They discovered 702 illegal connections. Destroyed 1,784 refineries. Seized hundreds of vessels. Lost colleagues in the fight.
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Read Also: U.S. Embassy warns of possible terror threat to American facilities, schools in Nigeria
The result? Chevron recording zero oil theft. Production jumping from 1.015 million to 1.8 million barrels daily. Billions saved. An economy breathing again.
This isn’t government propaganda. International oil companies don’t announce zero theft unless it’s true. Their shareholders demand accuracy.
Tantita’s success offers a blueprint for Nigeria’s other security challenges. Banditry in the Northwest. Separatist agitation in the Southeast. Each conflict needs solutions rooted in local knowledge and community engagement, not just military force. But we’re not having that conversation. We’re too busy ignoring the one security success story we actually have.
The thieves had their run. For decades, they bled Nigeria dry while officials looked away and foreign conspirators profited.
Not anymore.
Tantita Security Services proved that Nigerians who know the terrain, understand the people, and refuse to let their country die can achieve what seemed impossible. They’re not just guarding pipelines. They’re guarding Nigeria’s economic future.
And maybe it’s time we acknowledged that instead of pretending it didn’t happen.
Because the numbers don’t care about our scepticism. Production is up. Theft is down. Revenue is flowing.
And in a country where government initiatives working is the exception, not the rule, that deserves more than silence.
It deserves recognition.
