Adewale Sanyaolu
The rising wave of pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft appears to have assumed a frightening dimension capable of rocking the foundation of the Nigerian economy if not urgently tackled.
Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and Chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC) Ad Hoc Committee on Crude Oil Theft, Prevention and Control recently painted a dire picture of the menace and its effect on the economy when he raised the alarm that about 22 million barrels of crude oil was lost to oil theft in the first half of 2019.
This was even as the Managing Director of Aiteo Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production, operators of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29, Mr.Victor Okoronkwo, lamented that the activities of oil thieves have gone out of control, leading to the loss of about four million barrels of crude in 2019.
Okoronkwo, who spoke on the sidelines of the Practical Nigerian Content Exhibition and Conference which ended recently in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, said attacks by oil thieves on the 117-kilometre Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) have adversely affected crude export from oilfields in Bayelsa leading to about two months shutdown in 2019.
Like siamese twins, pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft are two evils that depend on one another to thrive. Without deliberate pipeline destruction, there cannot be oil theft because the former is the transport means used in conveying crude oil product to the export terminal and other locations.
However, lives and properties are often recorded whenever pipeline vandalism occurs.
For the Niger Delta region, the target is always crude oil while in the South West region which has a larger chunk of the popular Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation system 2B pipeline, the aim of the vandals is to siphon petrol.
A few weeks ago, pipeline vandals for the umpteenth time struck at the Baruwa area in Ipaja Lagos, leaving several people dead and properties worth several millions of naira destroyed in a fire outbreak that followed their nefarious act. The act followed a similar one which earlier occurred at the Ijegun area in Alimosho Local Council area of Lagos some months back.
The prompt response of the NNPC team, Lagos Fire Service, and the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps led to the fire outbreak being quickly put off thus averting a possible scarcity of petroleum products during the Yuletide.
The Corporation has however, given a red card to owners of illegal structures along its Right of Way (Row) to remove them or be ready to face the full wrath of the law, a development stakeholders applauded NNPC for sustaining and should not relent on.
Indeed, some stakeholders have called on the National Assembly to enact laws to appropriately punish vandals and economic saboteurs.
Curbing pipeline vandalism
To address the menace, the NNPC recently laid out steps to mitigate pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft in the nation’s oil and gas Industry.
Speaking in Abuja at the inaugural Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Policy Dialogue, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, said oil theft remained a challenge in the Industry despite some strong interventions in the past.
Kyari averred that the gradual reduction in incidences would be sustained through improved collaboration, implementation of Global Memoranda of Understanding (GMoUs), and deployment of appropriate technologies, among other measures.
The NNPC GMD who was represented at the event by the NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Upstream, Mr. Roland Ewubare, listed other measures to curb the menace to include: a security architecture with single accountability for national critical infrastructure; Industry and regulatory commitment to transparent crude oil and products accounting; realistic expectation by host communities; and emplacement of sustainable social investment mechanism.
He emphasized the need to inculcate shared values of integrity and transparency across every level of the governance structure for pipeline security, policy refill and enforcement of legal actions on economic saboteurs.
The NNPC GMD harped on the need to prioritise and instil in the nation’s teeming youth a sense of patriotism and national orientation. On the immediate and remote causes of oil theft and pipeline vandalism, the GMD posited that most stakeholders were of the view that oil theft was essentially a social problem which underlying causes include: poverty in the communities, community-Industry expectation mismatch and corruption.
Others, he noted included: ineffective law enforcement, poor governance, poor prosecution of offenders, high unemployment in the communities, thriving illegal oil market involving both Nigerians and foreigners, and inadequate funding of resources to combat oil theft. He lamented that NNPC, as an operator, had suffered severe attacks on its facilities and assets, noting that between 2001 to half year 2019, NNPC had recorded a total of 45,347 pipeline breaks on its downstream pipeline network across the country.
Kyari said that for the Nigerian economy to prosper, NNPC and other oil companies must be able to operate efficiently and profitably.
“Unfortunately, the combination of crude oil theft, illegal refining and pipeline vandalism, has become a major threat to Nigeria in meeting its revenue projections in recent time,” he said.
Stakeholders’ canvass collaboration
In its attempt to nip the menace in the bud, the NNPC said it has forged a formidable alliance with some key stakeholders in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry with a view to eradicating the ugly incidences of oil pipeline vandalism while ultimately sustaining the prevailing sanity in the supply and distribution of Petroleum Products across the country.
Leading a team of critical stakeholders to the site of a recent oil-pipeline fire in Baruwa Community, Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos, Chief Operating Officer, Downstream of the NNPC, Mr Yemi Adetunji, said it had become imperative for players and stakeholders in the Industry to come on board with the corporation in its effort to stamp out the ugly menace.
He said the fire incident of December 5, 2019 which was immediately extinguished within 24 hours with subsequent restoration of the affected line, was one ugly episode which must not be allowed to fester, especially in the System 2B Pipeline Network which serves as an invaluable corridor for seamless supply of petroleum products.
He noted that last year there was a fire outbreak in the same Baruwa community and this year two incidences were reported in November and December, saying security agencies and the local community must rise up to the challenge and secure oil pipeline facilities which he described as critical national assets.
The COO, however, assured that the Baruwa pipeline attacks would not affect the current seamless supply and distribution of petroleum products nationwide, even as he added that the corporation had emplaced a reliable product supply mechanism to handle situations of this nature.
The Executive Secretary, National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Mr.Aloga Ogbogo, said that the protection of oil pipeline infrastructure should be the responsibility of every well-meaning Nigerian.
National Chairman of Petroleum Tanker Drivers branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Mr. Salmon Oladiti, affirmed the commitment of his members to work with NNPC to combat the activities of oil thieves and pipeline hackers.
He said PTD prohibited its members from partaking in the illicit transport of stolen products because it views it as an act of economic sabotage.
The Chairman of Peace Estate Development Association, Engr. Omojowo Adedeji, said that the entire residents of the estate, which borders the scene of incessant attacks, fully aligned with the renewed drive by the NNPC to stamp out the illicit trade in stolen oil within and around the community.
The Bale of Baruwa Community, Alhaji Khalid Baruwa, also identified with the push by the corporation to tackle the issue headlong.
He stressed the need to fortify surveillance around the community with clear demarcation of pipeline Right-of-Way.
The Obaseki NEC Ad Hoc Committee stand
For his part, Obaseki, stressed the need to institute a proper governance structure for pipeline security in the Industry, calling for the establishment of ‘Special Courts’ and training of judges to prosecute and convict perpetrators of crude oil theft in the country.
He called on the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) to work with the NNPC in identifying possible international markets and destinations of stolen Nigerian crude oil.
He said that the Industry must end the prevailing incentives that make it possible for crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism to flourish.
The governor disclosed that NEC had upgraded the Ad Hoc Committee on Crude Theft to a standing committee with mandate to provide regular updates to NEC as may be required.