Internationally, Nigeria is a major player in the oil and gas industry because of her large endowment of the crude and raw oil and gas resources. The industry comprises 3 major sectors: upstream, midstream and downstream. The downstream consist of chain of activities of refining of petroleum crude oil, processing of raw gas, marketing and transportation to consumers. The sector is expected to yield much financial resource for the country but for oil theft and pipeline vandalism among others.
The Muhammadu Buhari-led Administration has been up and doing to tackle this menace for optimal benefit along with the efforts to diversifying the economy for robust financial base and sustainable development.
In a bid to add voice to the commitment of the government to deal with the threat, Surveyor General of the Federation (SGoF), Surv. Abudulganiyu Adeyemi Adebomehin has advised operators in the sector to use geospatial technologies to curb oil theft and pipeline vandalism.
The SGoF said oil theft and pipeline vandalism was doing much damage to the Nigerian economy in view of the regular loss of huge amounts of monies as a result of the theft and the monies required to replace the facilities vandalized.
Surv. Adebomehin offered the advice in response to a question from an anchor, Fumi Ogbe, Managing Director of Zigma as one of the discussants of a panel on Funding the Nigerian Energy Mix for Sustainable Economic Growth at the Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition held at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja.
He explained that the utilization of geospatial technologies was a sure means of checking oil theft and vandalizing of oil facilities. Surveying and geoinformatics according to him deals with activities on the earth surface, positioning and movement of objects.
The SGoF reiterated that with geospatial technologies, facilities and its domains could be watched and drones deployed to build quick search through monitoring server for response options. He also advised that youth around oil facilities could also be engaged to stifle incursions on the facilities.
He added that the volumes of oil being transported should be determined firstly and the carriers could be monitored from points to points with geospatial technologies. He strongly advised the operators to collaborate with licensed surveyors for protection of critical facilities, loading and unloading of oil and gas.
Signed:
Abu, I. Michael
Head of Press and Public Relations, OSGoF
