NNPC hands pipeline protection contracts to oil-producing communities
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC) has handed over new contracts and renewed existing ones for the protection of its oil pipelines by oil-producing communities in the country, in an attempt to combat oil sabotage in the country.
The Nigerian Navy last week told the Senate Committee on Navy that the nation currently loses as many as 100, 000 barrels of crude oil at the estimated cost of N1.18 billion everyday amounting to N433.62 billion a year.
At his budget defence, Head of Nigeria’s Navy Usman Jibrin, who was represented by the Navy’s Chief of Logistics, Peter Agba, said the development was caused by “poor law enforcement at the nation’s territorial waters.”
According to Platts, NNPC spokesman Ohi Alegbe said the contracts initially awarded in 2011 to three unnamed security agencies based in the Niger Delta region had lapsed in 2012 following which there had been an increase in the sabotage and theft of gas pipelines and crude oil.
“The recent rise in the frequency and intensity of wilful attacks on our pipelines dictates that we step up our community engagement program to help stem the tide of the pipeline vandalism scourge,” Alegbe said.
Under the current deal, five community-based security outfits in areas with high concentration of crude and oil-products pipelines stretching from the Niger Delta region to Southwest Ondo, Ogun, Oyo and Lagos states, were handed the protection contracts, according to Alegbe.
Alegbe added that the contracts to the private security agencies did not in any way undermine the responsibility of the police and other state security agencies to protect the pipelines, but rather complements them.
Over the past decade, the country has experienced increased pipeline vandalism and security concerns which have led to some oil services firms pulling out of the country and oil workers’ unions to threatening strikes over security issues.
NNPC recently reported that pipeline vandalism has complicated the free flow of petroleum products and crude supply in its pipeline system, leading to a colossal cost of over N174.57 billion over the last 10 years.
NNPC maintains a network of over 5,000 km of pipelines that transport crude to refineries, as well as lines distributing imported fuel to depots across the West African country. The corporation said in February its upstream subsidiary Nigerian Petroleum Development Company was losing up to 60,000 b/d of its crude oil production and 250 MMcf/d of gas production after thieves punctured the Trans- Forcados pipeline and the Escravos-Lagos gas pipeline.
DAN OJABO