The truth about theft is that all of us pay for it. This is true even at the pump. I have written in the past about gasoline theft. When I was kid during the 1970s, gasoline theft was using a tube to siphon gasoline from tanks. Now it involves professional thieves stealing millions of barrels per year.

Shell plans to temporarily shut a key oil pipeline in southern Nigeria later this month to repair damage caused by oil thieves, leading to a cut of around 150,000 barrels per day. You can bet that will lead to an increase at the pumps. As reported in www.google.com.

The Nembe Creek Trunkline in Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer with output at around two million barrels per day, will be closed for a nine-day period.

The pipeline has been repeatedly hit by sabotage and theft. Oil theft has been estimated as costing Nigeria some $6 billion per year.

The plan is to remove bunkering points. Bunkering is the local term for oil theft.

The company removed 157 points of sabotage on its pipelines last year, but 90 points still exist.

How bad is the theft really? It is estimated that last month oil theft in Nigeria had reached unprecedented levels, rising to 60,000 barrels per day for Shell alone.

Theft classes are only one part of the solution. With their vast resources oil companies should be spending more money to keep their oil safe as well as find alternative energy solutions.