By Bimbola Oyesola
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has raised alarm over the worsening insecurity in the sector as investor now spends over $25,000 daily to secure oil installation.
The President of the union, Festus Osifo, in an interview with the Daily Sun, said that the current insecurity in Nigeria is a huge challenge and it is doing a lot of harm to the economy.
He said: “We are advocating and urging government to up the game. Today, in an average offshore installation site, we have between five to 10 security vessels manning the installation round the clock, with 100 to 200 personnel working there. “The cost of manning each security vessel is not less than $5,000 per day. With about five security vessels, we have $25,000 daily.”
Besides, the PENGASSAN President said the company in addition pay the naval officers, buy AGO and by the time it adds all these costs, it could be $30,000 per day.
“That adds to your cost of operation. As an investor, you’ll prefer to go to neighbouring countries that is relatively secure instead of investing in Nigeria,” he lamented.
He noted that the union in the just passed Petroleum Industry Bill, advocated that government must look at those peculiarities.
According to him, “If you want to increase royalties as other countries, you must create the enabling environment to attract investment.
“We have challenges securing the pipelines, securing the offshore and onshore installations. If you go to an offshore installation, it is like you have a battalion of army that are guiding most of the onshore installation, which ought not to be like that.”
Osifo said it was against this background that the National Executive Council of PENGASSAN recently resolved that beyond mere saying, organised a security awareness campaign across all its zones to advocate and also rewarded some police officers that are exemplary.
He stated that the union distributed N2 million with about N250,000 each to eight police officers across the zones to encourage and identify with them.