Daily Independent (Lagos) Nigeria: Military Begins Surveillance On Oil Pipelines

Adeola Yusuf
8 March 2010

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Lagos — The military has taken up the surveillance of oil pipelines in Nigeria, Chief of Defense Staff, Air Marshall Paul Dike, has said.

Nigeria, Africa 's biggest oil exporter, has lost over N174 billion in over 16, 083 pipeline breaks within the last 10 years.Dike charged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to consider the introduction of electronic devices for the protection of pipelines along with the physical presence of armed personnel.

The Chief of Defense Staff, who received a delegate of NNPC authorities in Abuja, assured of the preparedness of the Armed Forces to continue to provide security cover for oil facilities in the country.

"We would stop at nothing to ensure that the NNPC continues to record successes in the oil and gas sector and we also want to thank the NNPC for its support to the force," Dike reassured.

Like Dike, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ogbonna Onovo, pledged the readiness of the Nigerian Police Force to assist the NNPC in its quest to fulfill its mandate.

"We have a collective responsibility of serving the Nigerian people. I cannot imagine what Nigeria would be without proceeds from oil and gas, so we have a duty to protect that vital treasure base of the nation. We are together on this and we will do our best in this regard," Onovo said.

The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Sanusi Barkindo, it would be recalled disclosed in a two-day series of presentations made separately to the Inspector General of Police, Onovo and the Chief of Defense Staff, in Abuja that pipeline vandals have complicated the free flow of petroleum products and crude supply in its pipeline system.

The advent of illegal bunkering, pipeline vandalism and product theft has, according to a statement by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the NNPC, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, "massively impacted on the capacity of Nigeria's massive oil and gas assets to function optimally."

The NNPC's helmsman explained that though the combined working capacity of all the 21 Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, PPMC, depots nationwide, excluding holding capacities at the refineries, can provide products sufficiency of up to 32 days for petrol, 65 days for kerosene and 42 days for diesel, the activities of the pipeline vandals have made it impossible for the facilities to function full blast.

"A total of 16,083 pipeline breaks were," according to Barkindo, "recorded within the last 10 years adding that while 398 pipeline breaks representing 2.4 per cent were due to ruptures, the activities of unpatriotic vandals accounted for 15,685 breaks which translate to about 97.5 percent of the total number of cases."

The System 2E/2EX which conveys products from the Port Harcourt refinery to Aba- Enugu-Makurdi depots onwards to Yola-Enugu-Auchi, Barkindo continued "appears to be the haven of pipeline vandalism in the country particularly the Port Harcourt Aba/Isiala-Ngwa axis."

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He added: "In all, 8,105 breaks were recorded along the system 2E within the period representing about 50.3 percent of the total number of petroleum products pipeline breaks in the country. The attacks left the NNPC with a cost of N78.15 billion in product loses and pipeline repairs.

"The System 2A product pipeline route which conveys products from Warri-Benin-Suleja/Ore depots ranks second on the scale of pipeline break points with 3,259 cases representing about 20.2 percent of the total volume of products pipeline breaks in Nigeria. "The figure also came with a loss of over N20.39 billion in products and pipeline repairs.

The System 2B which carries products from the Atlas Cove-Mosimi-Satelite-Ibadan-Ilorin depots recorded 2,440 breaks leading to a loss of over N73.6 billion in products and pipeline repairs.