Oil Theft: Pipeline Surveillance Contract Yielding Results, NNPCL Confirms

The group chief executive officer of the NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari, yesterday confirmed that the oil pipeline surveillance contract with Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited was yielding positive results.

The company had been linked to an ex Niger-Delta agitation leader, Government Ekpemupolo commonly referred to as Tompolo.

Kyari spoke just as the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) Prof Bolaji Owasanoye said the country was losing about 60 per cent of revenue to bad agreements.

While speaking at a one day Legislative Transparency and Accountability Summit organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Corruption, Kyari noted that the surveillance deal is yielding good returns for the country. He insisted that the funds spent to secure the services of the firm are so insignificant quantum of the value of oil stolen in recent times in the country.

Kyari, however, raised the alarm that he has been receiving death threats from unknown persons due to the several ongoing reforms in the oil and gas sector leading to the discovery of several sources of crude oil theft.

Kyari said the company has discovered and destroyed thousands of illegal refineries in the last few months as well as connection on the main pipeline carrying crude to the terminal for export, dismissing the threat to his life as a none issue because “every human being will die someday”.

According to Kyari, the scale of oil theft that the country witnessed was not anticipated, not expected, not thought of.

“The scale is enormous. We have seen pipelines taken from our main trunklines into abandoned platforms in which people come to steal oil.