By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited ( NNPCL) , lamented on Tuesday that vandalism carried out on over 5,000 kilometers of oil pipelines by vandals across the country has become a national calamity .
Chief Executive Officer ( CEO) of the company , Mele Kyari who made the lamentation during interactive session with the Senate Committee on Petroleum ( Downstream) , however assured Nigerians that the Nation’s four oil refineries would be made functional very soon .
Problem of oil pipeline vandalism according to him , has been bedeviling the sector over the decades as the company had not been able to pump oil through pipeline from Warri to Benin within the last 22 years .
” Over 5,000 kilometers 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 .
He however said as a way out , the company is embarking on massive replacement of the pipelines which aside being vandalised , are old and obsolete .
He explained further to the committee that deregulation of the oil sector and in particular , 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 .
