Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Total Oil Nigeria Plc are trading blames over a pipeline vandalism, which occurred very close to the Alakija Bus Stop at the Festac axis along Mile 2 – Badagry Expressway last weekend.
Officials of the Pipeline Products and Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of NNPC, yesterday accused the French oil major of perpetrating the vandalism and discharging the products into a nearby Total Filling Station at Festac Third Gate near the Alakija Bus Stop. This is one of its most profitable stations in the country as it sells 33,000 litres of premium motor spirit per day.
Area Manager, PPMC, Engr Felix Wono, told THISDAY yesterday that officials of Total were involved in the vandalism. But a top official of Total, who spoke to THISDAY on condition of anonymity, accused the NNPC, the Festac Police and Civil Defence Corps of shielding the actual perpetrators of the act from arrest.
“Similar thing occurred in 2006. How was it contained? It was a combined team of NNPC officials and the Festac Police that came together and resolved the matter. At that point, this filling station was still where it is today and nobody pointed accusing fingers at Total.
“Everybody in this neighbourhood knows those who perpetrated this act but they are afraid to say the truth. Even the Civil Defence people and NNPC officials are aware; Police themselves are also aware,” he said.
According to him, “Technically speaking, there is no way Total can be involved in siphoning fuel from NNPC pipeline into a station that Total built; a station that is not built by the dealer. Total appointed the person that is running the station as a dealer and supplies products to the station on credit. It does not make any business or financial sense for the dealer to put products in a station that is owned by Total.
“It is impossible and unthinkable that such a dealer will be involved in pipeline vandalism to receive products from the pipeline and put it into underground tank that already has products from Total.”
Where is he going to sell it? And he cannot put it in trucks that Total sent to him because he is not the owner of the trucks.”
The official insisted that if the issue is examined from every perspective, there is no way a dealer will be involved in that kind of act.
“So that absolves Total from the thinking of the Police and NNPC officials. Total is a multinational oil company that has integrity to protect and is also in a serious joint venture partnership with NNPC,” he said.
On the hose, which runs from the pipeline valve to few metres to Total’s station, the official insisted that such type of hose can only be used to discharge products from tankers and not to load products.
“If you put that hose on the pipeline valve, it will uncouple itself because of high pressure. The only way you can take products from that pipeline is to open the tap, allow fuel to spill and then collect it with buckets and jerry cans,” he said.
He also said that the oil company was fully aware of the five tankers that were yet to be discharged at the Filling Station, which NNPC and the Police suspected to have emanated from the vandalised pipeline.
But the Police and the NNPC think differently. The Area Manager of PPMC said: “When we noticed loss of products from our system, we directed that an integrity check be carried out around the hot spots through Atlas Cove to Mossimi. There are hot spots vandals use to operate and we know those areas. So, once it happens like this, we go out to check.
“When we were preparing to come out, we got a call from the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps that there is a point around here that was vandalised, presumably, overnight. We said okay that perhaps, was the point where these losses occurred. We came and discovered that the valve had been tampered with. When our men were preparing to repair the valve, some of them took a walk around and they saw a foot path coming towards this place (Total Filling Station). The foot path was followed and behold, there was a hose. That is why we concluded that this station was responsible for what happened overnight,” Wono added.
Meanwhile, the Police have arrested the Station Manager of Total (Festac Third Gate), Mr. Edhwru; an OPC security operative at the station, Mr. Sunday Ogunkeye and another OPC security coordinator, Mr. Segun Ajibade. THISDAY gathered from an attendant at the Filling Station that one of the security men was picked up by the Police, when he said that he saw two Police patrol van in the area between 1.00am and 5.00am last Saturday morning, when the incident occurred.
The security man reportedly told his colleagues that one of the patrol van was stationed at the front of the filling station with the headlights on while the second van was patrolling the area throughout the period.
Efforts to speak to the Divisional Police Officer in Charge of Festac Town proved abortive but THISDAY gathered that the Lagos State Commissioner for Police, Mr. Marvel Akpoyibo, had directed that the case file be forwarded immediately to the State Command Headquarters for proper investigation.