Military, NNPC to colaborate against oil theft

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Gabriel
Olonisakin has assured the Group Managing Director
(GMD) of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation

(NNPC) Dr Emmanuel Kachikwu, that the Armed
Forces would interface with the Corporation to ensure
that all the problems militating in the NNPC are given
optimum attention. The CDS gave this assurance when
the GMD NNPC paid him a courtesy visit at his office
at Defence Headquarters Abuja.
Gen Olonisakin noted that already the Nigerian Navy
has put up a lot of initiatives at ensuring that the issue
of pipeline vandalism, piracy and oil theft are
addressed. He however asserted that military need
some support in order to put a stop to oil bunkering
and other forms of criminalities which cause Nigeria
billions of Naira in revenue. The CDS further said that
it is the duty of the military to safeguard the strategic
assets of the nation.
Earlier in his remark, Dr Emmanuel Kachikwu
solicited for Nigerian Armed Forces collaboration in
the fight against oil theft, pipeline vandalism and other
vices in the Nigeria maritime environment.
He stated that his visit was predicated by the proposal
of the NNPC to the President, Muhammadu Buhari, to
partner with the Army Corps of Engineers for pipeline
maintenance and the overseeing of the security of its
properties. The visit, he said was part of the efforts to
work out modalities under the CDS’ supervision to
have the military protecting NNPC’s equipment and
assets. He pointed out that the NNPC is evolving a
holistic attitude aimed at making sure that the best
manpower is used. “We are trying to equip the Navy a
lot more with boats for patrols; we are trying to get
trackers and central system to be able to monitor every
vessel that comes in and out of the country. We have
equally spoken with the Chief of Air Staff (CAS) on
other effective way of collaboration”, he said.
Dr Kachikwu revealed that crude theft last year was in
excess of 250,000 barrels on the average daily which
is basically 1/5 of the entire national production. He
pointed out however, that the ugly trend has reduced
since he came onboard as the new GMD NNPC, even
though he was quick to admit that a lot more still
required to be done to finally curb the menace. Those
in attendance at the meeting were the Principal Staff
Officers and Directors of the Defence Headquarters.