FG laments over vandalization of oil facilities in Niger Delta

The Federal Government has lamented the economic and environmental effects of the continued vandalization of oil facilities in the Niger Delta region.

The government said the country spends a huge amount of money in fixing the vandalized oil facilities and also clean up the environment that is degraded as a result of oil spillage from vandalized oil facilities.

Speaking at a Town Hall Meeting on Protecting Oil and Gas Infrastructure, held in Abuja, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said that 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.

He said an average of 200,000 barrels per day is lost to the wanton damage to pipelines and N60 billion spent yearly to repair and maintain the vandalized points.

“According to statistics, between January 2019 and September 2020, 1,161 pipeline points across the country were vandalized. Apart from the impact on the nation’s earnings, consider also the environmental problems caused by the incessant vandalism, in terms of freshwater pollution, air pollution, soil pollution, etc, and you will appreciate the enormity of the problem,” the Minister said.

Mohammed said the objectives of the Town Hall are to “create in the public mind that government property are indeed citizens’ property and so must be protected for the benefit of all, and sensitize communities, especially those where infrastructure is located, to be conscious of the importance of such and protect them.

“Expose, arrest and prosecute all those who engage in buying pilfered infrastructure items along with those who bring such to them to sell. Sensitize the larger citizenry to support the widespread campaign on the protection and ownership of public infrastructure/assets, especially in the Railways, Roads and Aviation sectors.”

He said the destruction of public infrastructure by some unpatriotic Nigerians calls for great concern and immediate action.

On his part, the Minister of Environment, Dr Mohammad Abubakar said oil pipeline vandalism over the years is one of the major factors that has contributed significantly to environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region.

He said the attack on oil facilities have become the innovation that replaced the agitation in the Niger Delta region against the perceived poor governance and neglect of the area.

“The impact of vandalism of oil facilities have not only caused the nation colossal losses of revenue but the money that would have been used on the channel to develop sectors of education, health housing roads and many more.

“Since incidences of the report of oil facilities vandalism, data according to National Oil Spillage Detection and Response Agency from 2015 to March 2021 the total number of oil spill recorded was 4919, the number of the oil spill caused by corrosion was 308, equipment failure 484, operational maintenance era 106, sabotage, 3628, and yet to be determined 70, giving the total number of oil spill on the environment to 235,206 barrels of oil, this is very colossal to the environment,” Dr Abubakar said.

The Minister said Nigeria lost approximately N4.75 trillion on oil theft activities in the 4 years between 2015 and 2018 according to the estimate by the Nigeria Natural Resources Charter.

“This equated to the Federal Government having lost approximately 43 per cent of its revenue to oil theft. The statistics emphasized that Nigeria as the most notorious country in the world for oil theft, lost roughly 400,000 barrels per day, dwarfing the second country which is Mexico that reported only 5000 to 10,000 barrels per day,” he added.

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva said Since 2014, an average of about 38 million barrels of crude oil is deferred annually due to incessant pipeline vandalism.

Sylva who was represented by the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari said in 2020, about $1.538 billion of revenue was deferred (37 million barrels) due to 94 incidences.

“An average of $2.163 billion of revenue has been deferred annually since 2014 as a result of incessant pipeline vandalism,” he noted.

The Minister, therefore, urged citizens to take the pipeline as a critical national asset and report activities of suspected vandals to relevant authorities.

He also called on community leaders to ensure the pipeline right-of-way is not encroached to avoid unfortunate incidences of fire outbreaks.

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FG laments over vandalization of oil facilities in Niger Delta

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