The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said it will engage the military in the surveillance and protection of oil and gas pipelines in the country.
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, disclosed this while speaking to newsmen shortly after a tour of facilities of the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), Alesa-Eleme in Eleme local government area of Rivers State.
Kachikwu said, “We are no longer going to take the excuse that people are sabotaging the pipelines or vandalizing of the pipeline. We are going extremely tough on this. If we can make the pipelines work, we can get the crude easier.
“We are almost at the threshold of bringing in the Army Corps of Engineers to help in pipeline protection. We should be looking at aerial surveillance with helicopters; land surveillance by the military and naval surveillance as long as we can.”
He however said the plan to use the military in securing the pipelines will not affect the arrangement between the NNPC and the pipeline host communities, pointing out that the effort to get the refineries and the pipeline to work perfectly would not be achieved if the communities are not carried along.
The NNPC boss said, “We will still engage the communities; I continue to emphasize on communities because at the end of the day, all these things we are doing will depend on how we work with communities.”
Kachikwu denied reports that there were plans to sell off the countries refineries, pointing out that the Federal Government is only considering going into a joint venture business to run the refineries.
He said, “Sell the refineries? There was never a plan to sell the refineries. There may be plans to have a joint venture business but that will depend on how the refineries work on their own. I hope that decision is sealed. Honestly, we are going to look at all options to make the refineries work 100%.”
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