The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, yesterday, said Nigeria lost
about N51.3 billion to petroleum theft in 2015
Baru made the disclosure when he led a delegation of NNPC
top management on a courtesy call to the Chief of Defence Staff, General
Gabriel Olonishakin, at the Defence Headquarters, Abuja, to appeal to the
Nigerian military to help secure critical oil and gas infrastructure and curb
losses incurred by the Corporation due to the nefarious activities of pipeline
vandals and oil thieves.
The revenue loss, according to Baru, was due to the
activities of pipeline vandals, adding that over 3000 vandalism incidents were
recorded every year from 2010-2015, while in 2015 alone, pipeline losses of
petrol volume of over 643 million litres were incurred.
‘‘From January to May this year, almost 1,447 cases of
pipeline hacking were recorded, resulting to a loss of 109 million litres of
petrol and 560,000 barrels of crude oil to refineries, posing a great threat to
the nation’s economy and the 2016 federal budget.
“The 2016 budget plan was based on 2.2 million barrels per
day (bpd) of crude oil production. However, the budget plan is now grossly
impacted due to renewed militancy with about 700,000bpd of oil production
curtailed due to pipeline vandalism,’’ he said.
The NNPC GMD noted that domestic natural gas supply to power
is equally impacted with an estimated drop of about 50 per cent from 1400
million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd) to barely 700mmscfd
resulting to significant power outage exposure of between 2500MW to 3000 MW as
a result of direct and indirect impact.
“Along with this menace is the incessant cases of kidnapping
of personnel and piracy in areas of operations. Other impacts of these
despicable acts include loss of lives, high cost of operations, refinery shut
down, fuel crisis and large scale environmental degradation and attendant cost
of oil spill clean-ups,’’ he said.
While thanking the Chief of Defence Staff for the laudable
and timely creation of Operation Delta Safe and the subsequent appointment of
Rear Admiral Okojie as the Commander,
Baru called on the CDS to provide support for the NNPC for re-entry into
the Chad basin and Benue for resumption of exploration and drilling activities.
He pledged that under his watch as GMD, NNPC is committed to
collaborating with CDS and other Government security agencies to emplace
lasting solution to eliminate the hemorrhage of losses, revenue deferments,
energy and security threats.
Olonishakin in his response said that the Defence
Headquarters and the armed forces were duty bound to support and provide the
NNPC with all necessary security support because of its strategic role in
ensuring the economic survival of the nation.
The CDS promised to accede
to the request by the GMD for the DHQ to facilitate and sustain the
deployment of relevant military personnel to critical oil and gas locations as
the need arises.
On the request for military support to enable the resumption
of exploration activities in the Chad Basin, Olonishakin explained that
exploration activities will remain on hold until the military concludes ongoing
campaign by the Multi-national Joint Task Force designed to cleanse the
environment of the activities of insurgents.
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