The Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Petroleum Resources upstream, Ajibola Muraina on Thursday advised the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to ensure the full implementation of the fuel subsidy probe report when eventually released.
The committee chairman met with the management of the NNPC in Abuja during an oversight visit and cautioned that the days of sweeping recommendations under the table are over.
He insisted that the oil and gas sector must be sanitised and rid of sharp practices.
Meanwhile, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Austen Oniwon has called on the House of Representative to assist the oil and gas industry in combating the menace of illegal oil bunkering and crude oil theft which is currently hampering the smooth operation of the petroleum industry.
“The first challenge which I would like the House to help us with is the high level of insecurity of oil and gas facilities. As at today our operations have been severely handicapped by the activities of these criminals. We lose almost 180,000 barrels of oil per day to criminals. If you reflect back that the total amount of crude produced per day in Ghana which sustains the whole country is about 120,000 barrels, yet as a nation we lose more than that to criminals,’’ Mr Oniwon said.
He said the bigger implication of crude oil theft lies in the near permanent environmental damage to the zone where these illegal activities take place.
“These people drill into the pipeline, take what they want and at the end of the day, they just leave the pipeline to gush out its content into the environment. The case is even worse for those who engage in illegal refining. They just take crude oil into drums, put fire underneath, boil it and whatever boils off it is what they take,’’ he said.
He said that because the volume of what the criminals could possibly evaporate from the mix is about 20 to 25 per cent – the remaining 75 per cent is poured on the bare floor thus inflicting massive pollution on the environment.
“And because Hydro-carbon can stay in the ground for decades and even centuries it means in practical terms, it will take generations before the land can be recovered and made productive again.
“UN report indicates that the oil has penetrated 30 metres deep into the soil- so even if you want to remediate the environment you cannot scrape 30 metres of top soil and replace same. So we are looking at a near permanent damage to the environment,’’ the NNPC boss said.