It emerged on Wednesday that over $53billion was spent by operators of the petroleum sector to protect oil facilities and personnel in the Niger Delta region between 2007 and 2011.
An expert in oil industry security, Austin Onuoha who gave the figures in Abuja while making a presentation at round table on business and security organised by Global Rights noted however that the huge cost could be drastically reduced if Nigeria embraced the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.
Voluntary Principles on security and human rights initiative (VPs), which was established in 2000, is a multi-stakeholder initiative involving government, companies and non-governmental organizations that promotes implementation of a set of principles that guide oil, gas and mining companies on providing security for their operations in a manner that respects human rights.
A breakdown of the figures showed that in 2007 about N444b ($3billion); 2008, $23.7billion; 2009, $24billion; and $3billion in 2011. agencies Onouha explained that oil giant, Shell, alone employs about 1200 internal police officers paid wholly by it while it also engages another 1300 armed security forces from regular government security.
“This security challenge is magnified by the fact that Nigeria over the years has developed a huge critical national infrastructural complex in the petroleum industry.
Nigeria’s oil is lifted from 250 fields, oil is drilled from 300 oil fields, 5,284 wells, made up of 7,000 kilometres of pipelines, 10 export terminals, 275 flow stations, 10 gas plants, 4 refineries and 2 Liquefied Natural Gas Plants. Securing all these in a terrain as difficult as the Niger Delta with poor governance like Nigeria is a huge challenge.
“Analysts have described Nigeria as over-policed and undersecured. The security situation in the Delta fits this trend and has deteriorated sharply since the region was put under military occupation in 1998. The Nigerian government, driven to keep oil revenues flowing and working in close partnership with oil multinationals, has heavily militarized the Delta.
“Shell alone has hired over 1,300 government forces as armed guards. Security costs for the oil industry in Nigeria, once negligible, have sky rocketed to approximately $3 billion a year.
http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/over-53bn-spent-to-secure-oil-facilities-in-4-years-expert/