Officers and men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) Operation Pulo Shield have destroyed 127 illegal crude oil refineries in the Niger Delta arresting 29 persons in the operations.
The suspected oil thieves were undergoing preliminary investigations before handing over to the police, a statement by the JTF media coordinator Lt. Col. Onyema Nwachukwu said.
According to the statement. troops from 19 and 3 Battalions troops from Edo and Delta states destroyed 24 illegal refineries and 73 Cotonou boats., with another 27 boats arrested in Egara creek along NNPC pipeline in Warri South.
The operation, according to the statement, swept through several parts of Delta State resulting in the seizure of 61-75 HP speed boats and a truck laden with 33,000 litres of diesel.
Also seized, the statement continued, were 502 drums, 22 steel tanks, 4 plastic surface tanks, 77 metal drums laden with stolen crude oil and diesel.
In Bayelsa State, said JTF, its troops from 343 Regiment destroyed 98 illegal crude oil refineries in Southern Ijaw council, seizing 119 tanks and 37 Cotonou boats laden with diesel.
In a separate anti-oil-theft operation, said Nwachukwu, ” troops of 29 Battalion and the Gun Boat Patrol Company…arrested a barge with 3 crew members and a vessel Christened MT Tora Eagle with 11 crew members in Bodo water way and Akassa creek in Rivers and Bayelsa states respectively.”
The intercepted barge, the statement explained, was laden with 3,600 drums of stolen diesel and a yet-to-be determined quantity of crude oil.
“The troops also scuttled 5 illegal crude oil distillation sites and 10 Cotonou boats filled with stolen crude oil along Lewe, Bodo, Elem Sagangama, Oluwasiri and Bodo West in Rivers State,” the statement added.