Lokpobiri: Majority of Nigeria’s Oil Pipelines Obsolete, Won’t Deliver Fuels to Destinations

•Seeks FRSC’s partnership to curb tanker accidents

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, yesterday said that oil pipelines in the country had become obsolete, reason the federal government was seeking investors to revamp the over 5,200 kilometres infrastructure nationwide.

Speaking when the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Shehu Mohammed, visited him yesterday in Abuja, the minister stated that though it wasn’t normal practice to resort to tankers to move petroleum products, Nigeria will have to make do with it for now, until the pipelines are rehabilitated.

He stated that the ministry was deeply concerned by the recurrent cases of accidents as a result of some of the peculiarities that Nigeria faces at this particular time, but agreed that ordinarily products should be transferred through the pipelines.

“Ordinarily, petroleum products ought to be transported through pipelines to nearer locations where people can come and then take to final their destination. But most of the pipelines have already outlived their lifespans, and it’s very capital intensive to replace them.

“And so those discussions are still going on. You’ll recall that before this administration, for 12 years, there had been majorly no investment in the oil sector, not just upstream but also midstream and downstream. And it was because a lot of people felt that Nigeria’s governance structure wasn’t really steady.

“It took too long for the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to be passed. And the PIA was first introduced when I was in the Senate in 2007/2008. That was when it was first introduced.

“It wasn’t passed until 2021. And everybody wants to bring dollars to invest in an environment where there is certainty. And so investment didn’t come into the country for some of those reasons, together with some fiscal reasons where some people felt that our fiscal conditions were not globally competitive.

“But all those things are changing now. We’ve been able to bring back the confidence that is needed for investments to flow in. And so those investments will come in. And that is why today you have Dangote Refinery. You also have a couple of other modular refineries that are coming up,” the minister said.

He explained that as a government, the dream was to give support to all local refineries, pointing out that one of the issues  faced had to do with distribution of the products to their final destination.

He told the FRSC to ensure that vehicles are certified roadworthy before they are given products and also ensuring the training of drivers before they can carry products around the country.

“So we want to also use this opportunity to also solicit for support that you certify the tanker drivers that drive trucks. It is in the interest of the drivers. It is also in the interest of the public that when products are conveyed from depots to the market, they are conveyed safely to the destination.

“I also want to use this opportunity to say that at the ministry, we are committed to strengthening our collaboration with the FRSC. If there’s anything that we can do on the issues of training, support, the issue of material support in the form of ambulances and vehicles that we can do,  I want to assure you that we will take that very seriously,” he explained.

He assured the commission that he will work very closely together with them and ensure that the right supply is given when needed, urging the FRSC to work toward compliance with extant global road safety standards.

He also admonished them to ensure that truck valves are properly tightened so that products won’t spill when there are clashes.

The minister noted that the aspiration of the federal government was to make sure that the tradition of using pipelines to move products by operators  is re-established, stressing that at the moment, Nigeria is resorting to evacuation of products through trucks.

“Today, you can’t put anything. If you put, maybe only 10 per cent will get to the city because the pipes are already gone, and so somebody can just puncture and then tap to in and Nigerians have become so criminally minded that they don’t care.

“ They believe that, look, it’s public property, so let me just take my own. But we are working towards ensuring that we get investors that will come and invest, and bring the pipelines back online”, the minister said.

In addition, he stated that the federal government was trying to deploy technology so that if there’s any infraction at any point, it will reflect in the command and control centre.

Also speaking , the FRSC Corp Marshal, Mohammed, said that as an organisation that believes in road safety, and with transportation of petroleum products being done by road, it was necessary for the collaboration.

“We have already an existing collaboration with the upstream, downstream regulatory authority where our staff, our personnel, are in all the tank farms to make sure that there is safety of those trucks, or rather tankers that carry out petroleum products.

“They also see to it that those safety valves are in place so that in the event of road traffic crashes, the oil might not spill over to cause fire. So we have so many collaborations with agencies under your ministry, and as a road safety traffic agency in management and administration, we have designed so many initiatives like the road transport safety certification scheme.

“This is to make sure that not only tankers and trailers, but all the vehicles in this country are being certified, and to make sure that it’s only the good ones that can ply our roads to reduce crashes that we are experiencing in this country,” Mohammed said.