The new president of Nigeria is urging the country to embrace nuclear power, although his own nuclear watchdog is struggling to track the radioactive materials already in use here.
“We need to develop the capacity to utilize nuclear power for power generation. Who knows, nuclear power may be the only source of energy in the future, and we must think of the future,” President Umaru Yar’Adua said in a speech this week.
Nigeria has frequently said it would like to build a nuclear power plant to address its chronic power shortages, partially caused by poor management and maintenance of its electricity infrastructure. The country is Africa’s largest crude producer, but currently imports all its refined oil because its four refineries have been shut down by accidents, broken parts or sabotage.
The petroleum industry is currently the main user of radioactive materials in Nigeria. The materials, used in tools to detect cracks in pipelines or measure exploratory oil wells, have gone missing — or been stolen — in the past.
Nigeria also has nuclear materials for research and medical purposes, including in a reactor, that are regularly inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog for the United Nations. The United States signed an accord with Nigeria’s nuclear agency in 2005 agreeing to pay for tighter security at sites where radioactive materials are kept.
William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, said the radioactive materials used in the construction industry would be of interest to terrorists who might want to construct a “dirty bomb” — which could spread radiation by a conventional explosion. He added that inadequate regulation of radioactive materials is a global problem, but “even more acute in those countries which lack well-developed nuclear regulatory bodies and material control and accounting practices.”
Even in the U.S., Potter said, about one radioactive device a day was “orphaned” or lost track of.
Shamsudeen Elegba, director of the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority, said in a speech last week that despite upgrading controls designed to halt the illicit trafficking of radioactive materials, “we still have some challenges in the safety and security of radioactive sources.”
He said that progress had been made but highlighted the lack of dedicated storage facilities and detection capacity at ports of entry, inadequately trained personnel and inadequate tracking of sources as Nigeria’s major challenges.
Before the establishment of the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority in 2001, there were no restrictions on the import or export of radioactive materials. The body is still battling to effectively regulate their use and import.
In 2002, two devices used for X-raying oil pipelines for cracks were stolen from the back of a truck in the restive southern Niger Delta, according to news reports at the time.
The devices, which contained radioactive americium-beryllium, were lost in December. But the government did not issue a public warning until two months later, when a delegation from the IAEA arrived to help investigate their disappearance.
The devices were eventually found in a European scrap yard, said an oil worker who was familiar with the investigation. He thought the thieves may have stolen them to sell as scrap.
An IAEA official confirmed the oil worker’s account, but agency officials authorized to speak to the media were not immediately available for comment.
The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority refused to answer questions about individual breaches of security.
The oil worker, who asked not to be named due to company restrictions on speaking to the press, said he was aware of at least one other occasion when radioactive materials went missing but declined to give details due to the sensitive nature of the incident. He did say that to the best of his knowledge, the materials stolen in the second instance had not been recovered.
A private security contractor who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media said that in 2004, radioactive materials had been abandoned on rigs that had come under attack by gunmen. Attacks on the Nigerian oil industry occur several times a week. Over 250 foreigners have been kidnapped in the last two years and a quarter of the country’s oil production is currently shut in following a series of bombings by militant groups demanding greater political rights for their impoverished region.
Earlier this year, the government also publicly chastised four oil and oil service companies for moving around radioactive materials without the proper permits. It did not specify what the materials were but americium and cesium are two of the most commonly used by the industry, although usually in relatively small amounts.
The oil worker said that in Nigeria, it was impossible to say which companies used radioactive oil well mapping devices or how many they owned.
The methods for tracking such materials seemed to differ company to company, he said, and if they’re lost, nobody cares.