The weekly activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) started with a move by President Muhammadu Buhari to end crude oil theft in the country.
To this end, Buhari ordered the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva and the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari, to halt the worsening state of crude oil theft across the country.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Mr Gbenga Komolafe and the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, were also told to join the fight against oil thieves.
Speaking during an assessment tour of the Niger Delta, Sylva described the perpetrators as criminals, and said that the deployment of top stakeholders by Buhari was to underscore the importance of the situation.
The minister said that the days of oil vandals and oil thieves were numbered as efforts would be intensified to stop their criminal activities. He said that government would no longer afford these activities, assuring that stringent action would soon be taken against the criminal elements.
According to the minister, there are three elements to the solution of the extant problem, including the communities.
Sylva said that since the perpetrators were from communities, the host communities needed to be involved in finding a lasting solution to the menace. He tasked all stakeholders, including the security agencies and the operating companies on the urgent need to take the president’s order seriously and bring the menace to an end.
On his part, the GMD/CEO of NNPC Ltd, Malam Mele Kyari stated that the government had concluded plans to move against oil bunkering, pipeline vandalism and illegal activities threatening the country’s oil sector.
He noted that the government would leave no stone unturned to arrest the increasing spate of oil theft and destruction of the environment which had cost the country foreign exchange earnings.
Kyari said that the team which visited various sites where illegal oil refineries were being carried out was on a mission to ensure that illegal oil refining and theft of crude oil was halted. At Ibaa, Emeoha Local Government of Rivers State, the team ordered the destruction of several illegal sites.
The NNPC’s helmsman said the country can no longer afford to see her oil illegally exploited and stolen, while assuring that the strategy being adopted would finally arrest the situation. He commended the efforts of the security team to stop the perpetrators of the heinous act from denying the country of the much needed resources for economic development.
The trip and subsequent actions were necessitated by the public outrage against the massive stealing of Nigeria’s crude oil which had robbed the country of huge revenue.
In a recent presentation to both the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and the GMD/CEO of the NNPC during the working visit, former chairman of the Independent Petroleum Producers’ Group (IPPG), Isah AbdulRasaq said that oil producers have been struggling with the incidence of crude oil theft which were unprecedented.
AbdulRasaq who lamented the escalating cost of security in the operations said between 15 per cent and 90 per cent of losses from oil theft in the last six months were from the eastern axis. He called for the launching of major offensive against crude oil thieves and an executive private sector driven pipeline security initiatives.
Crude oil theft assumed an alarming proportion and was having a debilitating effect on government revenue and the fight should not be left to the stakeholders alone. The support and cooperation of all Nigerians was required to bring the nefarious activity to an end.
No comments:
Post a Comment