Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited (TSSNL), a surveillance company operated by ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, has discovered another huge illegal pipeline connected to the 48-inch Trans Forcados Export Trunk line, at the rear of a military security post in Burutu Local Government Area, Delta State.
This is even as the Oil Spill Victims Initiative, (OSPIVV), has threatened to sue the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) and Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), over the illegal pipeline connections used to siphon the country’s crude oil.
The newest discovery is like the earlier illegal 4-km pipeline also attached to the same Trans–Forcados export trunk line, earlier discovered by Tantita operatives.
Sources said that oil companies, oil bunkers, NNPCL, and security officials jointly steal crude oil through the illicit pipeline connected to the trunk line through an abandoned pipeline by the Nigerians Agip Oil Company Limited, NAOCL, and linked to a location in the high sea, where they load crude oil into vessels and sell overseas.
On the newly uncovered criminal pipeline, the sources said the bunkers actually ferry the crude to the sea for loading and onward movement abroad through the abandoned NAOC pipeline.
An executive director of OSPIVV, Prince Harrison Jalla, told journalists in Warri, that the body was particularly interested in the theft of crude oil from the Forcados Terminal.
“Thuey have been stealing our national heritage for the past nine years and no one can say for sure where it began or where it ended. We want to start by holding the NNPCL and SPDC accountable for the oil theft and the atrocities committed against the Niger Delta people.
“We will take on the NNPCL and SPDC. We have already briefed our solicitors to sue. So many International Oil Companies have to account for this heist, but we want to start with the Shell Group because there is no way they could pipe crude oil from those terminals without the involvement of those running the terminal,” Harrison said.
