The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, declared that the 2016 national budget was grossly impacted by the vandalism of crude oil pipelines in the Niger Delta region, resulting in a loss of N51.3bn.

Baru also appealed to the military to help secure critical oil and gas infrastructure and curb the losses incurred by the corporation due to the nefarious activities of pipeline vandals and oil thieves.

The GMD, who led a delegation of NNPC top management on a courtesy visit to the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonishakin, at the Defence Headquarters in Abuja, stated that from January to May this year, 1,447 cases of pipeline hacking were recorded, resulting to a loss of 109 million litres of petrol and 560,000 barrels of crude oil.

Throwing more light on the issue of pipeline vandalism, the NNPC GMD stated that over 3,000 vandalism incidents were recorded every year from 2010 to 2015.

“In 2015 alone, pipeline losses of PMS volume of over 643 million litres valued at over N51.28bn was incurred,” Baru said.

The NNPC boss was quoted in a statement issued by the corporation in Abuja to have 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 about 700,000 bpd of oil production curtailed lost due to pipeline vandalism.”

Baru noted that natural gas supply to the power plants was equally impacted, with an estimated drop of about 50 per cent from 1,400 million standard cubic feet of gas per day to barely 700mmscfd, resulting to a significant power outage exposure of between 2,500 megawatts and 3,000MW.

“Along with this menace is the incessant cases of kidnapping of personnel and piracy in areas of operations. Other impacts of these despicable acts include loss of lives, high cost of operations, refinery shutdown, fuel crisis and large-scale environmental degradation and attendant cost of oil spill clean-ups,” he said.