Nigeria lost N5.973bn to pipelines vandalism in 5 months – Kyari

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), lost a whopping N5.973 billion between January and May 2021 to the unpatriotic and illegal activities of pipeline vandals, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, has said.

Kyari gave this 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 in the five months period under review.

According to the NNPC boss, the System 2B has 80 pipeline breaks, while System 2E, also has 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.

The NNPC GMD further said, “the vandalism of the nation’s pipelines comes at a heavy cost, which includes environmental damage, huge product losses, high cost of repairs, huge time loss, human and property damage among others.

He called for collaboration with relevant stakeholders to curb likelihood of fire incidence on pipeline’s right of way, and pipeline’s vandalism, urging that citizens should take 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 upon 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 are 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”, the Minister noted.