The Managing Director of the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Mrs Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, has warned that any oil pipeline vandal caught, will be prosecuted with their assets destroyed to serve as deterrence.

Mrs Nnamdi-Ogbue, who spoke to reporters when some pipeline vandals were apprehended on Christmas day, said that the pipelines are the only effective way to distribute petroleum products nationwide and must be allowed to function.

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, said that Nigeria cannot give in to the point where vandals and saboteurs become more powerful than the government.

“Oil pipelines in Nigeria serve two purposes: to distribute crude oil to the country’s three refineries for processing and to distribute refined petroleum products across the country for easy supply to consumers.

“Frequent pipeline vandalism has made these two functions ineffective for several years,” he said.

Mr Kachikwu said that sabotage cannot be totally foreclosed given the technological know-how required to break the pipe and siphon oil.

“The target of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and PPMC is to repair the pipelines routes from Lagos to Port-Harcourt.

“This will make it possible to pump fuel all the way through Lagos-Ibadan and Ilorin to relieve the coastal cities and bridge the north and from Port-Harcourt through Makurdi and up to Yola”, he said.

While these are on, the PPMC boss said that real time tracking of petrol distribution trucks will commence fully by January 2016 which will totally eliminate diversion of petroleum products and the resultant scarcity of petrol. (Channels TV)

•Photo shows PPMC MD, Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue.

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