THE escalating violence against oil facilities in the Niger Delta underlines the need for the oil and gas industry to improve its security provision to better protect itself against such events. Angus Cooper, business development manager at Thales, makes the following comments:
“Attacks on Nigerian oil facilities have been a recurring problem for several years. However, the recent spate of violence in the Niger Delta has underlined the fact that the oil companies could still do more to prepare and secure themselves. In particular there is a lack of adequate surveillance and situation awareness around facilities. This has meant that they are repeatedly forced onto the back foot, having to react to incursions on oil company properties after they have occurred rather than proactively responding in advance of the attacks taking place.
“In light of the recent attacks in Port Harcourt, such as on Royal Dutch Shell, ENI SpA and, this week, the Daewoo facility, it is clear that oil companies are not making sufficient investment in covert surveillance systems that would enable them to become more aware of manoeuvres outside the facilities’ perimeters. Shell has been losing as much as 100,000brl/d to theft from its Nigerian pipelines. While it has managed to reduce this to a fifth of that level, further action must be taken. Far greater provision must be made for surveillance solutions which can be deployed on the ground or in the air to monitor activities around their assets.
“These developments, coupled with advanced security and safety operations centres would see the oil companies far better suited to continue business in such an ongoing hostile environment such as the Niger Delta.”
A recent Thales white paper on the subject of oil and gas security can be downloaded from its site at http://security.thalesgroup.com.