Kyari urges military to continue fight against oil theft

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.), has urged the military to maintain the fight against crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, which has led to increased oil production.

Mr Mele Kyari, Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPC Ltd., made this appeal on Tuesday when he received the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa, who led senior military officers on a courtesy visit.

Kyari, in a statement by Olufemi Soneye, Chief Corporate Communications Officer, NNPC Ltd., called for enhanced and sustained security engagement.

“We have reached a new peak in production that we haven’t seen in the last three years.

“This is clearly related to the sustained efforts by the armed forces and other security agencies to protect our critical assets, particularly the pipeline infrastructure in specified areas where we are working closely with these agencies.”

He commended the CDS and his team for their commitment to securing Nigeria’s critical hydrocarbon assets, and expressed confidence that they would deliver on the Presidential mandate to mitigate security-related challenges affecting crude oil production.

Earlier, the CDS had said the visit was to introduce the Monitoring Team to NNPC Ltd., which would interface with the company and other stakeholders in the oil-producing regions to secure Nigeria’s critical hydrocarbon infrastructure.

He pledged commitment towards improving security and performance and stressed the need to ramp up production for a prosperous economy.

He also reassured of collaboration with intelligence agencies, private security, state governments and host communities for enhanced performance.

“Working in silos won’t give us the best results. I want to assure you that we will collaborate with the necessary stakeholders to achieve our set targets as mandated by Mr. President,” he said.