NNPCL Destroyed Vessel With Stolen Crude As A Warning Sign To International Collaborators– Tantita Security

Tantita Security, the company contracted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd for pipeline surveillance has said that the recently intercepted Vessel, MT TURA II was exploded to send signal to international collaborators.

Captain Warredi Enisuoh, the Director Operations and Technical of Tantita said this on Thursday during a monitored interview on Arise TV.

He said, “Nigeria is very light and merciful on this kind of crime. If you go to places like Australia where I did similar kind of job before, or even as we speak Peru, Indonesia and all of these places, it is explosion straight away to send a message even to China, Chinese fishing vessels that goes into their territorial waters or even Indonesian fishing vessels that come to Australian waters.

“But when Nigeria does theirs, people start shouting. We have to protect our natural resources for our children and the next citizens. So, we are not bothered about one particular ship or something like that.

“Afterall it is set ablaze, the whole oil becomes gas, it is less dangerous to the environment keeping that oil as evidence till it leaks out into the water and pollute, kill fish and inhabitants of the area won’t be able to survive.”

On July 7, 2023 NNPCL intercepted a Vessel with a Cargo of Crude oil on board.

The Vessel, MT TURA II (IMO number: 6620462), is owned by a Nigerian Registered Company, HOLAB MARITIME SERVICES LIMITED with Registration Number RC813311.

When it was intercepted, the cargo was heading to Cameroun with the Cargo on board. It had 800,000 barrels of crude oil stolen from Nigeria.

MT TURA II was destroyed with the 800,000 barrels of crude in it while some staff onboard the vessel were arrested by Nigerian authorities.

However, critics have accused the state-owned oil company of destroying the vessel used to perpetrate oil theft.

Enisuoh explained “As far as disappearance of evidence goes, it is more of a culture in this part of the world. I want to say something that a lot of people don’t know about. This ship was built in 1965, now you will keep it as evidence for a court case that is possibly going to last about 10 years. This oil may likely go into the water and give more problems, more ecological problems for the inhabitants.

“Which one is worse. At the end of it, if the ship is found guilty and you now decide to evacuate the oil somewhere else, you evacuate the oil with documents. Who is going to be there to monitor the evacuation?

“They could bring the same documents back and tell you they are evacuating the same oil where actually in the fact is that they have gone somewhere else to take more stolen oil and show you the same original papers for evacuating oil.

“How long are we gong to spend Nigeria’s resources pursuing the same people all the time? You know that this particular ship has been evading capture for a long time. It came into the country with a different name, tried to change it, didn’t succeed, falsified its name and started committing crime against us for the last 10 years before it was caught. So how can you keep this kind of vessel?”

Crude oil theft cost Nigeria around 470,000 barrels of crude estimated at $700m daily last year.

A recent report by the Nigerian Extractive International Transparency Initiative estimated Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude valued at N25trn between 2009 and 2020.

He added, “If you look at the statistics of this kind of criminality, it has reduced. If you also go back to last year Nigeria oil production, you will see that massive increase has been recorded recently. It tells that a lot of people have been desisting, they are scared they don’t want to lose their assets here and there.”