By Francesca Hangeior
The House of Representatives has decried the recurring destruction of oil and gas pipelines in the country.
Rep. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, Chairman Special Committee on Oil Theft, condemned the act at a meeting with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ltd. in Abuja.
The engagement was to unravel the root cause of oil theft in the country and the possible solution to stop the menace.
Ado-Doguwa said it had been established and common knowledge that operating oil and gas pipelines in Nigeria constituted a herculean challenge.
“It is saddening to note that these infractions do not stop with the pipelines; daily breaches are also recorded at the oil well heads, flow stations, loading, and export terminals, among others,” he said.
He said that the opacity and non-transparency of regulatory activities at the nation’s crude oil export terminals were alarming.
“We are compiling the facts and figures. Instances where approvals are hastily granted to vessels involved in crude theft just to cover official complicity are reported.
“Incidents of undeclared liftings are noted, and all these and several other infractions, particularly in our offshore marine environment, contribute to the huge volume of crude oil theft being reported,” he added.
Mr Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director, NNPC Ltd., said no fewer than 9000 infractions on its pipeline were recorded in one year.
He said between 2022 to date, the corporation has deactivated 6,465 illegal refineries, while 4,876 illegal connections to a pipeline were removed out of the 5,570 that were discovered.
Some of the scale of the infraction that we see is unbelievable. We are not able to deal with it. When you remove one connection, the next day in the same location, someone will replace it.