Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) lost a whopping N5.973 billion between January and May 2021 as a result of the activities of vandals, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, has said.
Kyari, who gave the hint in his presentation at the town hall meeting on protecting oil and gas infrastructure in Abuja on Monday, said the Corporation’s pipeline segments have suffered 203 pipeline breaks within the five months period under review.
According to the NNPC boss, the System 2B have 80 pipeline breaks and System 2E, also have a total of 114 pipeline breaks with a total cummulative loss of 39million litres.
“From January-May NNPC pipeline segments have suffered 203 pipeline breaks with System 2B having 80 pipeline breaks and System 2E, a total of 114 pipeline breaks with a total cummulative loss of 39million litres amounting to N5.973bn” he said.
Kyari stated that the vandalism of the nation’s pipelines comes with heavy consequences including environmental damage, huge product losses, high cost of repairs, loss time and human and property damage among others.
He called for collaborations with relevant stakeholders to curb fire incidence on pipeline right of way, and pipeline vandalism, urging that citizens should take the pipelines as critical national assets and report activities of suspected vandals to relevant authorities.
“Community Leaders should ensure the Pipeline right-of-way is not encroached to avoid unfortunate incidences of fire,” he added.
Also speaking at the occasion, Alh. Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, stated that the activities of vandals on critical infrastructures of government is totally unacceptable.
He said that protecting oil and gas infrastructure is very important, considering that the destruction of this infrastructure has socioeconomic and environmental implications.
“With oil providing 80 per cent of Nigeria’s budgetary revenues and 95 per cent of foreign exchange earnings, one can only imagine the impact of the incessant destruction of oil pipelines on the economy.
“To have such laudable efforts of the government thwarted by some unpatriotic citizens through wanton destruction of critical infrastructure is totally unacceptable,” added the Minister.