(Nigeria Police. Photo Credit: PremuimTimes)
The Nigerian Navy has foiled a bid to vandalise crude oil infrastructure in Bonny, Rivers State, describing it as part of continued efforts to protect the country’s oil and gas assets under Operation Delta Sentinel.
This was disclosed by the Director of Information, Navy Captain Abiodun Folorunsho, on Thursday.
He explained that personnel attached to the Forward Operating Base in Bonny, while on routine patrol near the Renaissance African Energy Company Limited’s Oloma Flow Station, intercepted a fibre boat operating suspiciously close to a wellhead.
On sighting the patrol team, those on board abandoned the vessel and fled.
A search of the boat led to the recovery of tools commonly used for tampering with wellheads and vandalising pipelines, among them a portable generator, a cutting or grinding machine, chisels, spanners, cutlasses and other related items, which the Navy believes had been assembled for an attempt to breach the wellhead and siphon crude oil.
Subsequent operations, conducted jointly with other security agencies, led to the arrest of one suspect linked to the plot, with efforts ongoing to track down other members of the syndicate.
The recovered boat has since been secured pending further investigation.
Folorunsho said the operation successfully averted an attack on critical oil infrastructure, sparing the country potential economic losses and environmental damage that such sabotage could have caused.
He reiterated the Navy’s commitment to intelligence-driven operations under Operation Delta Sentinel aimed at protecting national assets, curbing crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, and denying economic saboteurs room to operate within Nigeria’s maritime space.