By Adaobi Rhema Oguejiofor
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mr. Mele Kyari, has lamented that the vandalism carried out on over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipelines by vandals across the country has become a national calamity.
Kyari made the statement on Tuesday during an interactive session with the Senate Committee on Petroleum, Downstream, assuring Nigerians that the Nation’s four oil refineries would be made functional very soon.
According to him, the problem of oil pipeline vandalism has been afflicting the sector over the years as the company had not been able to pump oil through pipeline from Warri to Benin within the last 22 years.
In his own words, “over 5,000 kilometres of oil pipelines in the country are not working. As a result of pipeline vandalism, 10 million litres of oil were lost from the volume pumped from Aba to Enugu at a time.
“There is no amount of security measures that had not been taken to curb the crime without success, which to us in NNPC, is substantially a national calamity.”
He, however, said as a way out, the company is embarking on massive replacement of the pipelines, which aside from being vandalized, are old and obsolete.
The NNPC Boss explained further to the committee that the deregulation of the oil sector and in particular, subsidy removal carried out in May 2023, has turned the Company into a profitable company.