The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation – Mr Mele Kyari, has commended the country’s military for providing a secure environment for the corporation to carry out its functions.
NNPC also expressed its readiness to re-enter and commence full operations at the Chad Basin, Gongola and Benue Trough, as it seeks for wholistic military supports for the protection of its workforce and high-tech equipment.
Group Managing Director of the corporation, Mallam Mele Kyari, made this submission when he led top management of the NNPC on a visit to the Chief of Defence Staff, General Gabriel Olonisakin, at his office in Abuja on Tuesday.
A press release by NNPC the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr Ndu Ughamadu, stated that due to the security challenges in the Chad Basin, Gongola and Benue Trough, the NNPC had not been able to mobilize fully to those areas of its important operations.
Kyari said that the military had succeeded in curtailing the activities of pipeline vandals and saboteurs of the nation’s key national economic infrastructure.
He stressed: “Am visiting the Chief of Defence Staff as my first port of call following my appointment to seek for the support of the Armed Forces to help the NNPC in re-entering the Chad Basin, Gongola and Benue Trough to enable us to carry out our mandate for national development. Your support in terms of providing full security for staff and equipment is critical to us.”
He added that the corporation equally required the military to intensify efforts in the protection of NNPC’s pipelines and Right of Way (RoW) across the nook and cranny of Nigeria.
Mallam Kyari stated that the NNPC was seriously challenged due to the nefarious activities of pipeline vandals, petroleum products thieves and other economic saboteurs that breach the operations of the corporation in various parts of the country.
The GMD recounted the significance of NNPC’s contributions to the national economy, saying the corporation’s synergy with the Military was critical to the wellbeing of the nation’s economic lifeline.
Responding, the CDS, General Olonisakin, described the NNPC as a strategic corporation that would be given full military support to enable her to deliver on her mandate to the Nigerian people.
“It is imperative for the Armed Forces and the NNPC to collaborate and synergize for the benefit of the country going by their various strategic roles to the nation. The Armed Forces operations, code-named: Operation Wase and Operations Delta Safe, along with other operations, were geared towards protecting pipelines and various oil and gas facilities,” General Olanisakin averred.
He said the military and the NNPC had been working together and the visit of the GMD would further bolster the various operations to secure the oil and gas installations, adding that the Military had devised several strategies to stem the tide of pipeline breaches in the country.
He added that the activities of the military in the nation’s oil sector had created the much-needed safe environment for NNPC to conduct petroleum operations for the benefit of all Nigerians.
Olonisakin congratulated Kyari on his appointment as the helmsman of the nation’s petroleum corporation.
He assured the GMD of the readiness of the armed forces to collaborate with the NNPC in safeguarding the country’s infrastructure in the oil and gas sector.
Olonisakin further assured that the military would sustain its ‘Operation Awatse’, which was launched to tackle the menace of pipeline vandalism in the South-West zone, amongst other criminal activities.
