Vandalism: oil, gas firms to provide electronic surveillance of facilities

As part of efforts to ensure security of oil and gas facilities, foreign and indigenous firms operating in the nation’s oil and gas sector will have to install electronic surveillance gadgets on their facilities.

This was raised Wednesday in Abuja at the two-day stakeholder consultation on the draft National Gas Policy and National Oil Policy.

Giving an overview of the National Oil/Gas Policy, Gbite Adeniji, Senior Technical Adviser on Upstream and Gas to Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources,  stated that it was important for companies to start putting in place oil field security systems.

Adeniji, while explaining the difference between the draft National Oil Policy and the bill before the National Assembly, stated that the vandalism of pipelines has severely impacted the sector negatively.

Maikanti Baru, group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC),  recently stated that the country had witnessed about 1,000 cases of pipeline vandalism in 2016 alone, a development that had dragged down the country’s production of crude oil.

The NNPC, in its financial and operations report for August 2016, also stated that in July and August this year, the country recorded 311 and 221 vandalism cases on oil pipelines, respectively.

Speaking on oil field security as contained in the draft NOP, Adeniji said, “Oil companies (are) to be charged with electronic surveillance. The time is overdue for Nigeria to build a digital oil field.”

He noted that in a few days time, the final policy document will be ready and when approved, the NOP will be binding on all players in the oil and gas sector, adding that the NGP and NOP will be transparent and will ensure that things are done properly.

Adeniji stated that the policy would also ensure that Nigeria gets a proper metering system that will eradicate oil theft in the industry.

He said the restructuring of the NNPC, as contained in the draft document, will guarantee the clarity required for the disbursement that must be made into the Federation Account, adding that it will avoid subsidies being constrained financially and stop overlapping roles with regulatory agencies.

Chairing the panel discussion, Tim Okon, an industry expert, stated that Nigeria should be moving away from crude oil production and export to crude production and processing.

Another panelist, Isa Baba, said the policy should support the deregulation of pipelines, stressing that the vandalism of oil installations was becoming alarming despite the ongoing negotiations between the government and agitators in the Niger Delta.

“It is sad that vandalism is this much in Nigeria today. We should deregulate the pipelines and either make the security of the facilities the responsibility of host communities or some particular security outfits,” he said.