The Federal Government has ordered the immediate destruction of a vessel intercepted with 150,000 tonnes of stolen crude oil in Delta State.
As gathered by Theliberationnews, the ship named Tura II which boasts a capacity of 500,000 tonnes, was intercepted on Saturday morning by Tompolo’s pipeline surveillance firm, Tantita Security Nigeria Ltd, and would be destroyed on Tuesday (today) with explosives.
Tantita’s Executive Director, Technical and Operations, Captain Warredi Enisuoh, explained that the ship had been caught 10 years ago in the same act, but managed to get away, changing its name from Ali Riza Bey to Tura II.
Enisuoh added that they had been monitoring the activities of the vessel for a while, noting it was intercepted when it came in the early hours to steal crude. He said the vessel, which is over 50 years old, had already loaded about 150,000 tonnes of crude oil when it was impounded.
Also, Enisuoh added that the ship usually takes stolen crude to Ghana, Cameroun and Togo.
The Commander of Operation Delta Safe, Rear Admiral Olusegun Ferreira, disclosed that the vessel had 12 crewmembers, who, he said, were being investigated.
Ferreira said the vessel was intercepted through intelligence from stakeholders. He disclosed that they have secured approval from the Federal Government to destroy the vessel after collecting samples of its content and analysed them.
A team from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), led by Zakariya Buduwara, representing Chief Upstream Investment Officer, Bala Wunti, was on ground, yesterday, to inspect the impounded vessel.
The captain, who identified himself as Odubiyi Samson, told journalists that the vessel was hired by a group, but didn’t know the commodity they were conveying was stolen crude oil.
