Turning the tide against oil pipeline vandals

The NNPC spokesman who described those rich Nigerians as "warlords," said they are the only class of people who can afford the operational cost of such magnitude.

"Some rich and powerful people in the society are behind this thing. They are warlords and not villagers. Poor men cannot afford the cost of the number of plastic gallons at the scene of the incident. They planned this thing in advance before buying this number of containers. They know they will carry out such operation," he said.

Ajuonuma lamented that despite the sensitisation efforts of NNPC, villagers are yet to realise the dangers in scooping fuel from vandalised pipelines.

Before last week's incident, a top official of NNPC died, while three others sustained severe injuries in a pipeline fire disaster at Arepo village, Ogun State.

According to a statement by Ajuonuma, the affected officials were attempting to put out the fire, which was caused by vandals when the incident occurred.

Pipeline vandalism has assumed a pandemic proportion, especially during fuel crisis and festive periods.

Early last year, vandals destroyed pipelines in Festac area of Lagos to scoop fuel and it caught fire in the process.

This disrupted pumping of petroleum products to various depots in the Lagos area where substantial part of the country's importation comes from.

As NNPC was fixing the damaged pipeline to restore normal supply, another explosion that claimed more than 260 lives occurred at Awori Bus Stop in Abule Egba area of Lagos on December 26, 2006.

This led to other chain reactions that snowballed into worsening fuel crisis.

Many families could not travel during that yuletide season to visit their loved ones due to the exorbitant fuel prices which increased the cost of transportation beyond the reach of most Nigerians.

The increased cost of transportation created a multiplier effect in the economy as the cost of foodstuff also hit the roof top.

Even as Nigerians were groaning under the excruciating effects of fuel crisis, vandals struck again at the Ijegun-Imore area of Lagos and disrupted supply to Mosimi Depot which is fed from the Atlas Cove.

Nigeria is 80 percent dependent on fuel importation and much of this import is offloaded into the Atlas-Cove.

The NNPC responded quickly and fixed the line within three days, but barely three days after fixing the lines, vandals, again damaged the pipeline, thereby subjecting the country to another round of prolonged fuel scarcity.

Tunji Adeniji, national president of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) had in a reaction to last week's explosion maintained that pipeline vandalism was not restricted to Lagos area.

He lamented that the issue of vandalism has become a recurrent phenomenon in the nation's history, adding that out of the 21 NNPC depots across the country; only very few are working, due to the vandalism of pipelines.

"Enugu and other depots are also not working, partly due to vandalism, but because system 2B (western zone distribution network) is noted for products' receipt due to the presence of Atlas Cove, the vandals know when to strike," he disclosed.

The IPMAN boss also lamented that members had suffered huge financial loss as a result of fuel pipeline fire.

"If a marketer who is supposed to receive products from Ilorin goes to Apapa to receive products, this involves risks and higher costs. The bridging claims are not adequate because of the huge cost involved, especially when a marketer lifts products from Lagos to Gusau. The marketers are not supposed to travel for more than 100 kilometres," he said.

According to a recent NNPC report, vandalism is principally responsible for hiccups the country experienced in petroleum products supply.

It noted that vandalism of products pipelines was predominant in three axis; that were very crucial to petroleum products distribution in the country.

These include, the Atlas Cove-Mosimi; Abuja-Suleja and PH-Aba- Enugu- Makurdi.

For instance, the report stated that Port Harcourt recorded about 600 line breaks in 2003 had about 1650 line breaks from January - September 2006 while Warri Area moved from only 100 line breaks to 600 during the same period.

Also, Mosimi Area which recorded only 50 line breaks in 2003 reported about 375 between January and September 2006.

Even Kaduna and Gombe areas where line breaks were an unusual occurrence in the past, have caught the bug.

Both Kaduna and Warri Refineries (WRPC) have been down since February 8, 2006 as a result of vandalism of the Escravos - Warri pipeline that transports crude oil to both refineries, and operated at about 75 per cent of capacity utilization, producing some eight million litres of premium motor spirit (PMS) per day.

Consequently, NNPC had to resort to massive importation to meet the shortfall arising from production loss from the nation's refineries.

Thus, import facilities became over stretched as there is a limit to the volume the import facilities can handle with all the refineries down.

Ordinarily, even in the event of small supply disruption, our strategic reserves are often triggered from the various depots. However, as a result of prolonged restoration of vandalized pipelines, our strategic reserves have gone done in a few cases.

Ralph Ugwu, senior manager, Public Affairs of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) blames frequent cases of pipeline vandalisation on poverty and idleness.

To Emmanuel Adebayo, former commissioner of police, Lagos State, sheer stubbornness of the people is responsible for pipeline fire disaster.

But Funsho Kupulokun, former group managing director of NNPC said the police and the corporation should be blamed for not acting fast enough to avert the Abule Egba disaster. According to him, both the police and the NNPC were aware of the scooping by the people before the pipeline eventually caught fire.

Although, Ajuonuma insists that powerful Nigerians are behind the persistent fuel pipeline fire in the country, unfortunately, measures taken by the NNPC, IPMAN and other stakeholders to address the situation have not been able to curb the menace.

These include community policing, posting of mobile task force along pipelines; and engaging the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps to provide intelligence.

However, last week's revelation by Abubakar Lawal Yar'Adua, group managing director of NNPC that the Federal Government was awarding contract for the protection of petroleum pipelines across the country to communities hosting these pipelines as part of measures aimed at curbing the persistent fuel pipeline fire, was a welcome development.

The minister disclosed that the award of the contract to the host communities was to give them a sense of ownership of the pipelines.

According to him, the government has directed Shell, ExxonMobil and other oil majors to contract communities to protect their pipelines.

"We are giving the communities contract to secure the oil pipelines. This will make them part owners of these lines and ensure that vandals do not gain access to them," he said.

Industry experts say the move will curb the recurring decimal of pipeline vandalism.