The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that the nation lost about 750 million dollars to oil theft in 2019.
The NNPC Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, made this known in a statement signed by the Acting spokesman for the corporation Mr. Samson Makoji, in Abuja on Tuesday.
Kyari said this when members of the Executive Intelligence Management Course 13 of the National Institute for Security Studies (NISS) drawn from 18 agencies within and outside Nigeria visited the NNPC Towers.
He decried the growing activities of oil thieves and pirates which he described as a threat to the operations of the corporation.
The NNPC boss, who spoke on the topic: “Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea; Issues, Challenges for International Trade, National Security and Sustainable Development of Member States”, said that any threat to the corporation’s operations was a direct threat to the very survival of Nigeria as nation.
This, he said, was because of the strategic role of the corporation as an enabler of the economy.
Kyari listed other security challenges facing the corporation to include vandalism of oil and gas infrastructure and kidnapping of personnel.
He posited that there was a connection between the various insecurity challenges as they were all linked to what is happening in the Gulf of Guinea and the entire maritime environment.
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He, therefore, called for a concerted effort and synergy to secure oil and gas operations for the economic survival of the country.
Meanwhile, the NNPC boss reassured that in spite of the increase in demand for fossil oil, crude oil would still remain relevant.
He said: “Even by 2050, fossil fuel would account for 80 per cent of the energy mix, and there would still be consumption of at least, 100 million barrels of oil per day.
“We are determined to remain relevant in the long term,” he assured.
In his remarks, the NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Downstream, Mr. Yemi Adetunji, disclosed that in 2016, the Gulf of Guinea accounted for more than half of the global kidnappings for ransom, with 34 seafarers kidnapped out of 62 cases worldwide.
He disclosed that the corporation was working closely with security agencies to tackle the security challenges, and cited the “Operation Kurombe” that was recently conducted by the Nigerian Navy at the Atlas Cove as an example of such collaborative efforts.
Also speaking, the Executive Director, National Institute of security Studies, Dr. Ayodele Adeleke, called for collaboration among the security agencies to tackle the security challenges not only in the Gulf of Guinea, but in the Nigerian Petroleum Industry generally.
