The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Wednesday said that Nigeria lost the sum of N51.28bn to pipeline vandalism in the year 2015.

The Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr Maikanti Baru‎, disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday when he paid a courtesy visit to the Commandant-General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps , Abdullahi Muhammadu.

Baru his visit was to strengthen collaboration between the NNPC and the NSCDC and to fight a lasting solution to security threats on energy installations.

He said, “Under my watch‎ as GMD, NNPC is committed to collaborating with the NSCDC and other government security agencies to finding lasting solution to eliminate losses and energy security threats.”

He said the activities of vandals on NNPC’s pipelines in the Niger Delta region had become unbearable, and had led to substantial decline in the country’s crude oil production.

He said, “The 2016 budget plan was based on 2.2 million bpd of crude production.

“The fiscal plan is now affected due to renewed militancy with about 700,000 bpd of oil production curtailed due to pipeline vandalism.”

According to Baru, over 3,000 vandalism incidents were recorded every year from 2010 to 2015, while in 2015 alone, pipeline losses‎ of products were over 643 million litres amounting to N51.28 billion.

He said the domestic natural gas supply to power had also been badly affected with an estimated drop of about 50 per cent from 1,400mmscfd to below 700mmscfd.

The NNPC boss, therefore, called on the NSCDC and other security agencies to step up security and surveillance in the affected areas in the interest of the nation.

Earlier, the NSCDC boss pledged the readiness of the Corps to step up security surveillance and protection of oil installations in the country as its personnel had been undergoing re-training to deal with the challenge.

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Oludolapo Adelana

Dolapo is a writer and journalist who works with YNaija. He has interests in Christianity, politics and sports.