Nigeria loses about N15 billion to vandals in 5 months – NNPC
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC lost N15 billion between January and May 2016, its group managing director, Maikanti Baru has said.
Baru spoke at a meeting with Abdullahi Muhammadu, the commandant general of Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said the corporation lost 109 million litres of petroleum products with those five months.
“Pipe vandalism and stealing of petroleum products is taking a toll on the operations of the NNPC as it has lost 560,000 barrels of crude to the refineries as feedstock and 109 million litres of petroleum products between January and May 2016,” Baru said.
“The 2016 National Budget plan was based on 2.2 million barrels per day of crude oil production. However, the budget plan is now grossly impacted due to renewed militancy with 700,000 bpd of oil production curtailed due to pipeline vandalism.”
He added that natural gas supply to power plants had also been impacted with a resultant drop in power generation.
He therefore asked for deeper collaboration with the NSCDC for enhanced protectionof pipelines, gas stations, mega stations, refineries and other critical oil infrastructure across the country.
Responding, Muhammadu said the mandate of the corps is to protect critical national infrastructure including oil installations and assured the NNPC of its readiness to bring pipeline vandalism to an end.
