For Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, the vandalism of over 5,000 kilometers of oil pipelines is a national calamity.
He said the challenge triggered by pipeline vandals across the land has been plaguing the sector for decades, lamenting that the company had not been able to pump oil through pipeline from Warri to Benin in the last 22 years.
Kyari, who made the submissions during an interactive session with the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), in Abuja, also assured that the nation’s four refineries would be made functional very soon.
The NNPCL boss did not however give a date. But the Federal Government had earlier assured that the reactivation of two of the refineries will be completed next month.
Kyari said: “Over 5,000 kilometers of oil pipelines in the country are not working. As a result of pipeline vandalism, 10 million 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, however, said that the company has launched massive replacement of vandalised, old and obsolete pipelines.
Kyari told his audience how the deregulation of the oil sector and fuel subsidy turned around the fortune of NNPCL as a profitable company.
According to him, the company lost N802 billion before deregulation in 2018, but made a profit in excess of N687 billion after deregulation in 2021.
He added that while 67 million litres of oil was consumed per day during the era of subsidy regime, average of 55 million litres are being consumed on daily basis, just as the problem of product smuggling across the borders, has become a thing of the past.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ifeanyi Ubah (APC – Anambra South) and all the members of the panel, responded to the submissions made by the NNPCL’s group CEO that there is need for a retreat to assess the challenges and proved relevant solutions to them.
However, 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 government areas in Bayelsa State, like Sagbama where I come from, are not covered by the contract with attendant consequences,” Dickson said.
