MARGARET CHIDERA
Vandalisation of oil facilities span over 5,000 kilometres of petroleum pipelines across the country, the Chief Executive Officer ( CEO), of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited ( NNPCL), Mele Kyari, has lamented.
Making this disclosure on Tuesday, during an interactive session with the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), he said activities of vandals has become a national calamity.
According to Kyari, the Nigerian oil sector has witnessed many challenges for over two decades, which inhibits production and adequate distribution of of oil through pipelines.
He, however, assured that problems related to production and availability of petroleum.ptoducts in the country will be mitigated as four of the nation’s refineries will soon be fully operational.
Addressing the Committee, he said “over 5,000 kilometres oil pipelines in the country are not working. As a result of pipeline vandalism, 10million litres of oil was lost from volume pumped from Aba to Enugu at a time.
“The company has been unable to pump oil from Warri to Benin within the last 22 years and cannot connect to Ore.
“There is no amount of security measures that had not been taken to curb the crime without success, which to us in NNPCL , is substantially a national calamity,” he said.
Raising the hopes of Nigerians, he said NNPCL is embarking on massive replacement of old and vandalized pipelines.
Speaking on the much touted issue of deregulation, he told the committee that subsidy removal carried out in May this year , has turned NNPCL into a profitable company .
According to him, before deregulation in 2018, the company made loss of N802billion but after deregulation in 2021, made excess profit of N687billion.
He added that while 67million litres of oil was consumed per day during the era of subsidy regime, average of 55million litres are being consumed on daily basis now , just as the problem of smuggling the product across border, has become things of the past .
The chairman of the committee, Senator Ifeanyi Ubah ( APC Anambra South) and all the members, responded separately to submissions made by the NNPCL boss that proper dissection of challenges facing the sector would be better made in a retreat.
But Senator Seriake Dickson (PDP Bayelsa West), told the NNPCL boss to look critically into surveillance security contract the company is operating as regards non inclusion of some oil producing areas.
“Some local governments in Bayelsa State like Sagbama where I come from, are not covered by the contract with attendant consequences,” he said.
