They have all failed us. If not, by now, all of them would be out of jobs. Yes, how do you explain the unexplainable: “The head of Nigeria’s petroleum company told a legislative committee this week that a 4-kilometer pipeline from the Forcados export terminal has been used to steal oil for nine years, resulting in the theft of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day.” People, how did they know when it was installed? Carbon dating or what?
When you lose 600,000 barrels of oil every day (about $48 million per day at $80 per barrel), it means you have no systems. I worked in NNPC Owaza flow station in my first year internship in FUT Owerri. I followed again in the Nigerian Gas Company of NNPC in Moscow Rd, PHC, and was in the team helping to supply Aba glass and ceramic industries hydrocarbons. Later, I did industrial attachment in Shell Yenagoa flow station in Bayelsa state. In my small experience in the oil and gas industry, pressure matters and metering was sacrosanct.
If the pressure in the pipeline drops, you suspect a leak. But if there is no drop in pressure, your outbound metering number should match the one at the customer side. So, if you deliver 10 cubic feet of gas from Owaza flow station to Aba Glass, at the end of the week when you travel to Aba to read their meter, it should show the same 10 cubic feet. If there is a variance, it is possibly a leak and that must be investigated.
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So, for Nigeria just to discover that an oil pipeline was “illegally” installed for 9 years, what was happening to readings on pressure and reconciliations on crude oil assets? People, we really need to improve our systems if such a thing can happen considering the technologies I saw more than two decades ago in the oil industry. This is unacceptable.
Subsequently, Bashir Jamoh, director general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, said Thursday at a weekly ministerial meeting in Abuja that plans were underway to deploy round-the-clock surveillance to watch for oil theft. He said the operation would include manned and unmanned aircraft, helicopters, ships and armored vehicles, all connected to a headquarters known as the C4i Center.
Jamoh said selected officers from the agency were undergoing three weeks of training in Italy to enable them operate the aircraft. He said the drones “can move up to 100 kilometers and can remain 10 hours in one place, taking data and sending it to our own operations centers for possible intervention.”
Officials from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company on Tuesday announced the discovery of the pipeline being used to steal oil.
Jamoh said the pipeline was uncovered during a raid weeks ago. Authorities have not said who built it, and no arrests have been made.
Experts said the discovery of the underwater pipeline showed formerly unknown levels of sophistication among oil thieves.
Mele Kyari, managing director of the national petroleum company, said Nigeria was losing an alarming 600,000 barrels of oil every day, triple the figure initially estimated.
But Emmanuel Afimia, founder of an Abuja energy consulting firm, said it was not only oil theft that was contributing to Nigeria’s huge oil losses.
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Peter Obi stated few weeks ago that it is not small guys that are involved in the kind of ‘oil theft’ we always sing, that it’s highly organized crime with government connivance. But Nigeria being a morally depraved society, dotted with criminals in high and low places, magically, revelations are now coming left, right and centre, while the identities of perpetrators remain sacred.
When you see people opposing Obi’s candidacy, it is not because they have anyone who is truly ready to serve Nigeria and Nigerians transparently, but rather to keep perpetuating and protecting the eminent domains, the specially protected class. They promote and defend people whose source of riches they cannot explain, but they are rich and can do the things of money.
You will know awaiting or future criminals from the positions they take whenever crimes or criminals are discussed, some things are never hidden, and so I personally do not have trouble picking out people who suffer from moral badness, because it’s always self-evident.
The enemies of Nigeria are well known, including their accomplices and supporters, many of them know themselves and are very deliberate in their nefarious and immoral dealings.
But good people should never despair!