THE Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has secured the backing of the military which would now maintain closer surveillance on petroleum pipelines for it to actualize effective distribution of products to its depots across the country.
The move, Business World, gathered, is part of “NNPC War Room” strategy to rid the country of illegal bunkering, pipeline vandalism and product theft that have seriously hampered the optimal distribution of petroleum products.
The oil giant has explained the necessity of mass military troop’s deployment to protect its installations from vandalisation that has resulted to a total of 16,083 pipeline breaks which were recorded within the last 10 years.  Although the details showed while 398 pipeline breaks representing 2.4 per cent were due to ruptures, the activities of oil thieves accounted for 15,685 breaks which translates to about 97.5 percent of the total number of cases
Dr Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo Group Managing Director NNPC who visited Air Chief Marshall Paul Dike Chief of Defence Staff in Abuja to solicit military fortification of oil and gas facilities revealed that the activities of pipeline vandals had complicated the free flow of petroleum products and crude supply in its pipeline system leading to a colossal cost of over N174.57 billion in product losses and repairs of products pipelines. NNPC chief called on the armed forces to intervene urgently saying vandalization of oil and gas pipelines facilities remained the most critical challenge facing the industry.
Barkindo explained that though the combined working capacity of all the 21 Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC) depots nationwide, excluding holding capacities at the refineries, could provide products sufficiency of up to 32 days for petrol, 65 days for kerosene and 42 days for diesel. He however lamented the activities of the pipeline vandals had made rubbish of such plans.  
According to him, the System 2E/2EX which conveys products from the Port Harcourt refinery to Aba- Enugu-Makurdi depots onwards to Yola-Enugu-Auchi appears to be the major attacks of pipeline vandalism in the country particularly the Port Harcourt-Aba/Isiala-Ngwa axis with 8,105 recorded along the system 2E representing about 50.3 percent of the total number of petroleum products pipeline breaks which has left the NNPC with a cost of N78.15 billion in product loses and pipeline repairs.