The Nigerian Navy stated its personnel discovered illicit crude oil tapping sites in the Oil Mining Lease (OML-18) oil field in Rivers State’s Asari-Toru and Degama Local Government Areas.
According to the Navy, two wellheads controlled by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company at Kala Ekweama in Asari Toru LGA and Krakama in Delgama LGA were tapped by suspected pil criminals.
The Navy, on the other hand, stated that the national assets were retrieved from miscreants using intelligence acquired from patrol helicopters stationed in the region.
Commodore Sulaiman Ibrahim, Commander of the Nigerian Navy Ship Pathfinder at Port Harcourt, revealed this to reporters on Wednesday evening.
Ibrahim stated that individuals with specialised technical knowledge were responsible for the illegal activities, as he described how pipes were laid directly to the Wellheads and transported to about three separate loading sites.
When asked by reporters if oil theft and other acts of economic sabotage were still being pursued, Ibrahim said that the Navy was completely on the ground and that the security organisation was committed to ending them.
He stated, “This terrain was actually discovered by our air assets. You all know what it took for us to get here.
“Ordinarily this is difficult terrain, the Navy has put everything on the ground to ensure that it curbs crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region.
“Just yesterday we had one of our assets a naval helicopter on an Arial patrol it was in the course of the patrol that we discovered this site.
“Immediately gunboats were scrambled and we had our personnel sleep here to discontinue the oil theft process and their boats and other machines have taken away.
“At the same time, we have contacted OML- 18 who are the operators of this field to send their technical team and skilled manpower which you all saw on the ground to join in the collaboration.
“But the challenging report we got from the technical team sent is that the oil well head has been greatly compromised.
“So all efforts to get products out is quite difficult at the moment as oil exploration can not be carried except higher skilled and technical team are being brought in to do that.”
We are at position OML-18 today, which is part of the NNPC OML-18 resources in Okakara,” the NNS Pathfinder’s commander continued.
“This is one of the locations that was identified yesterday when we did an overflight using our air assets and you could see that the arrangement here is a bit more complex.
“You could see that there is a lot of technical skills have been involved when we found that pipes have been laid directly to the wellhead and then taken all the way to about three different loading points.
“There is no doubt that it has some very skilled technical people involved in this kind of operation because it is not something that a layman can just do as it stands.
“We would work with the company to investigate to find out who exactly is responsible for these connections.
“On the other hand we equally company we would get across to them almost immediately so that they can come and do the needful and also engage their local surveillance contractors who are ordinarily supposed to monitor the facility.”
Commodore Ibrahim has called on the public to come forward with information and identities of officers participating in illicit oil bunkering, after reports that members of the Nigerian Navy and other military officers are complicit in this activity.
