Captain Warredi Enisuoh, the Executive Director of Operations and Technical, Tantita Security, has revealed the reasons for Tantita Securities burning of the intercepted foreign vessel which was laden with stolen crude oil.
Followings the outrage of Nigerians after the setting ablaze of the vessel which contained over 800,000 litres of crude oil, Captain Enisuoh, in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Thursday, said that the burning of the crude oil in the foreign vessel was for the good of the environment, as the oil being kept could lead to oil spill and solution, whereas, if it is burned, it will simply evaporate into the atmosphere, causing less damage to the environment.
Enisuoh also said that if the ship and the oil was kept as evidence, there was a high possibility of the ship and the oil being stolen by the perpetrators, which will enable the illegality of smuggling to continue. And so, it was best to get rid of the ship so as to reduce the illegal refining of oil, as this particular ship had been in operation for over 12 years.
The captain said, “As far as the disappearance of evidence goes, it’s more of a culture in this part of the world, and that is one major problem. Two, I want to tell you something that a lot of people don’t know about ships. This ship was built in 1965. Now, you keeping this evidence for a court case that is possibly going to last about 10 years, this oil will likely go into the water and will create more problems, more ecological problems for the inhabitants around. Which one is worse? That is one thing.
“At the end of it, if the ship is found guilty, you now decide to evacuate the oil somewhere else, because you called the ship as evidence. If it is evidence, there is even no need to evacuate the oil during the court process, so you keep everything in one location. Now after the court process and you decide to evacuate the oil, you evacuate the oil with documents, good. Now this is one of our experiences. You are evacuating the oil with documents. Who is going to be there to monitor the evacuation? They could bring the same documents back again and tell you they are evacuating the same oil where actually the fact is that they have gone somewhere to go and take more stolen oil and show you the same original papers for evacuating oil. All through, you’ll be evacuating oil from the MT TURA all along. So, how long are we going to spend Nigeria’s resources pursuing the same people all the time.”
He then stated that due the actions of Tantita Security, illegal refining had drastically reduced in the Niger Delta, saying, “If you look at the statistics of this type of criminality, it has reduced. If you also go back to last year’s Nigeria oil production, you will see that massive increase in the production of oil. What does that tell you? A lot of people are desisting, they are scared, they don’t want to use their assets there and then. They know that justice is now swift more or less, so we’re not going to invest in that type of business.
Talking about the environmental benefits of burning the crude oil, Enisuoh said, “It is much easier to burn crude inside the ship than to burn crude outside the ship. The crude oil is still contained within the vessel and is still burning. It’s like you pouring fuel inside a metal place and setting fire on the fuel. It won’t spill out, it won’t even evaporate. After all, crude oil is gas in solid form. So, it’s easier to incinerate it in a contained manner, and at this particular point in time, I can guarantee you from my knowledge of being a ship captain and everything, that crude that is still burning till today is evaporating into the atmosphere.” He said that the water in the area is still very clean due to the manner in which the crude oil was disposed of, and that the environment was still unpolluted. He then assured those who were worried about the environment, saying that there was no way for the crude oil to escape and spill in the water. He then said that men from the organization were monitoring the whole operation, as he said, “In case anything of such happens, we boom the area and contain it. So, we’ve got that particular strategic plan in place and it is being done as we speak to ensure that everything just goes up in flames and in gaseous manner, which is more friendly to the environment than allowing it to spill.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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