The chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere, has said that media reports of alleged involvement of subcontractors in oil theft and pipeline vandalism in Bayelsa State was a threat to crude oil availability for local refineries and export revenue.
The lawmaker’s reaction came on the heels of media reports that an oil surveillance operation smashed a huge illegal bunkering camp in Bayelsa State of Niger Delta, with certain entities including one of the pipelines security subcontractors to Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company (AEPC), an indigenous oil exploration company, fingered in the incident. Aiteo, arguably the country’s biggest exploration and production company, is owned by business magnate, Benedict Peters.
Ugochinyere, in a statement on Saturday, lamented that the availability of crude oil in Nigeria has been a blessing as well as a curse, as it generates both revenue and criminality.
According to him, though the petroleum sector has been the backbone of Nigeria’s economy, it has doubled as an avenue for the primitive accumulation of wealth as well as a platform for crimes such as vandalism.
He stressed that the Nigeria’s oil industry has a problem of petroleum pipeline vandalism, which often leads to destruction of oil and gas pipelines.
Ugochinyere said that this alarming incidences of petroleum pipeline vandalism in Nigeria have spiralled over the years and it’s saddening that subcontractors were now fingered as part of the problem.
Noting that pipeline vandalism if not nipped in the bud will become a threat to crude oil availability for local refineries and export revenue, the federal lawmaker called for the cancellation of the subcontractor’s works, immediate arrest and prosecution of the culprits to serve as deterrence to others.
