Victor Ezeja
AdminThe Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari has described the destruction of over 5,000 kilometers of oil pipelines by vandals as a national calamity, with the country recording 172 crude oil theft incidents across different states between 11th to 17th of November LP.
Among these incidents, 12 took place in the Deep Blue water, 45 in the Western region, 44 in the Central region, and 71 in the Eastern region within the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta. This came to the fore in NNPCL’s weekly series: “Energy and You” aired weekly on the state television network.
Sixty-seven illegal refineries were discovered in Oowodokpokpo and Obodo-Omadino in Delta state, Ekeremor in Bayelsa state, Ohaji-Egbema in Imo state, Owaza in Abia state, and Emoha in Rivers state.
Additionally, 12 vessels had Automatic Identification System (AIS) infractions, eight illegal connections were detected in Abia, Imo, and Rivers states, five vandalism acts were found, and five illegal storage sites were located in Ughelli, Iyede, Olomoro, and Tori in Delta state.
Security agents also uncovered 54 wooden boats used for transporting stolen crude in Delta state, made 18 vehicle arrests in Patani, Kwale, Ughelli, and Abraka in Delta state, and identified three oil spills.
Meanwhile, at an interactive session with the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), the NNPCL CEO said the problem of oil pipeline vandalism had been bedeviling the sector over the decades as the company had not been able to pump oil through pipeline from Warri to Benin within the last 22 years .
According to Kyari, “Over 5,000 kilometers oil pipelines in the country are not working As a result of pipeline vandalism, 10 million litres of oil was lost from the volume pumped from Aba to Enugu at a time.
“The company has been unable to pump oil from Warri to Benin within the last 22 years and cannot connect to Ore. There is no amount of security measures that had not been taken to curb the crime without success, which to us in NNPCL, is substantially a national calamity,” he said.
He, however, said as a way out , the company was embarking on massive replacement of the pipelines which aside being vandalised were old and obsolete.
He explained further to the committee that deregulation of the oil sector and in particular, subsidy removal carried out in May this year, has turned NNPCL into a profitable company.
According to him, before deregulation in 2018, the company made a loss of N802 billion but after deregulation in 2021, made an excess profit of N687 billion.
He added that while 67 million litres of oil was consumed per day during the era of subsidy regime, average of 55 million litres are being consumed on a daily basis now, just as the problem of smuggling the product across borders has become a thing of the past.
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