The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency has urged the Society of Petroleum Engineers to join in the protection of Nigeria’s oil assets using their expertise.
A statement by the Assistant Director, Public Relations, NIMASA, Osagie Edward, said the Director-General of NIMASA, Dr Bashir Jamoh, made these remarks at the 45th SPE Nigeria Council’s ‘Nigeria Annual International Conference & Exhibition holding in Lagos.
He also stated that the SPE had a greater role to play in ensuring that economic saboteurs and pipeline vandals did not have a field day plundering the country’s resources for personal gains through oil theft and pipeline vandalism.
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 assets.
He explained that between January 2021 and February 2022, so much of the nation’s wealth in terms of crude oil was lost to oil theft.
The statement read in part, “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 boss said the agency was ready to assist the SPE to ensure that Nigeria’s natural assets were 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 communiqué that will come out of these deliberations; with timelines, deliverables and Key Performance Indicators stated, so that by this time next year, we should be able to take stock of what we have done,” Jamoh said.
