Director-General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh, has charged the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) to join in the protection of Nigeria’s oil assets using their expertise.

Jamoh stated that the SPE have a greater role to play in ensuring that economic saboteurs and pipeline vandals do not have a field day plundering the country's resources for personal gains through oil theft and pipeline vandalism.

He made the charge at NAICE 2022, the 45th SPE Nigeria Council’s Nigeria Annual International Conference & Exhibition holding in Lagos.

While speaking on the theme, “Global Transition to Renewable and Sustainable Energy and the Future of Oil and Gas in Africa”, Jamoh pointed out that there would be no economic sustainability without the protection of the asset itself.

He explained that from January 2021 to February 2022, so much of Nigeria’s wealth in terms of crude oil was lost to oil theft. This, according to him, is a very serious issue.

“The world is moving very fast, we can no longer use manual means of protecting our wealth and pipelines. It is the duty of SPE to think outside the box and see what type of contribution they can give in addressing this menace”.

The NIMASA Chief Executive said the Agency was ready to assist the SPE to ensure that Nigeria's natural assets are well protected.

“It is our sincere hope to partner with you by assisting SPE in whatever means to ensure we protect our natural assets.

“I hope that at the end of this conference, a team will be put together to monitor the action plan of the communique that will come out of these deliberations; with timelines, deliverables and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) stated. So that by this time next year, we should be able to take stock of what we have done”, Jamoh said.

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