By Adewole Kehinde
On Thursday, 27th My, 2021, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), in its February 2021 Monthly Financial and Operations Report, which is the 67th in the series, recorded 54 pipeline points vandalization representing 50% increase from the 27 points recorded in January 2021.
From the available record, Warri Area accounted for 50% and Mosimi Area accounted for 39% of the vandalized points while Kaduna and Port Harcourt Areas accounted for 7% and 4% respectively.
Pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft had been a major challenge for the oil industry for years and I think this can be attributed to poverty in surrounding communities, community-industry expectation mismatch and corruption.
Pipeline vandalism, despite the danger that comes with it, still persist because of poor prosecution of offenders, ineffective law enforcement, high unemployment in the communities, and poor governance were also major causes of pipeline vandalism and also inadequate funding of resources to tackle oil theft is not left out.
Between 2010 and 2012, a total of 2,787 line breaks were reported on pipelines belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, resulting in a loss of 157.81 metric tonnes of petroleum products worth about N12.53 billion.
Nigeria’s Oil and Gas pipelines need to be monitored constantly and continuously to stop these pipeline attacks before damage to the pipelines are sustained and the petroleum products is illegally accessed and siphoned off.
I will advise that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation continues to work in partnership with the local communities and other stakeholders to eliminate the menace of pipeline vandalism.
It is also expedient for Federal Government to deploy modern technology in reducing both internal and external compromises within the oil industry, security agencies and communities hosting oil pipelines with a view to tracking the activities of vandals and reducing incidence of vandalism.
Measures like collaboration, implementation of Global Memoranda of Understanding and deployment of technologies are other avenues to reduce the incidents around pipelines.
Although security architecture with single accountability for National Critical Infrastructure; industry and regulatory commitment to transparent crude oil and product accounting are some of the measures taken by the government to curb the menace; other measures that can be taken are realistic expectations by host communities and emplacement of sustainable social investment mechanism among others.
I will strongly advise the NNPC to focus more on technology such as the Automated Oil and Gas Pipeline Protector which works by detecting the earth vibration signals unique to ground digging and pipeline breakage using custom designed sensing units.
Sensing Units are buried underneath the ground, above the buried pipeline and are spaced 200m apart. Acquired seismic signals are processed by the Arduino Mega controller board using a customized algorithm that quantifies the activities going on at the surface of the earth into threatening activities (e.g. digging and drilling), and non-threatening activities (e.g. walking and running).
After detecting a threatening activity, the Sensing Unit sends an alert message to the mobile phones of the patrol officers in patrol cars spaced 20km apart on the pipeline route and to dedicated control Centres.
I am aware that testing of the Automated Oil and Gas Pipeline Protector has been conducted in Effurun, Delta State.
The system demonstrated the ability to detect a vandal digging within 20 seconds of the activity’s commencement.
The system also demonstrated the ability to alert the appropriate authorities via text messages containing the date, time, type of activity detected, alarm confidence rate, GPS location and driving directions to the vandalization site.
Future work includes the integration of a line of sight (LOS) drone to assist local authorities in navigating and mobilizing to the vandalization site with the appropriate number of armed personnel to handle the vandals.
Money spent on vandalized pipelines will go a long way to improve the welfare of the citizens as well provide employment and empowerment for the teaming youths especially in the communities where these pipelines are buried.
Adewole Kehinde is the Publisher of Swift Reporters and Energy Fellow of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry Policy Centre and can be reached via 08166240846, 08123608662
