Page 11 - AfrOil Week 49 2022

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

“The new security architecture was anchored on suffered,” he told Arise TV.
basically on rectangular architecture layered on
technology. It brings together the security and Anti-theft campaign
intelligence agency at one angle, the regulators Wunti went on to say that he expected addi-
at another angle, the operators at another angle, tional terminals – namely, the Brass and Bonny
and then brings in what was almost zero – the facilities, both of which have been shut down
community – into the other angle, and without following declarations of force majeure by their
the community you can’t achieve that,” he said. operators – to come back on stream as anti-theft
“That is just the innovation and we layered it operations continued. “Forcados is back. Bonny
on a technology – Command and Control Cen- will soon be back,” he stated.
tre … Today, we have end-to-end visibility: We In the meantime, he said, security forces have
are able to detect, we are able to deter and we destroyed about 638 of the 763 known illegal
are able to respond. We are still making a lot of oil-refining facilities and will continue working
improvement and that’s what you call the 3DR: to curb theft. Wunti cautioned, though, that the
we first detect, we deactivate, and we destroy and sector’s problems were pervasive and would take
then we remove.” time to identify and disable all of the facilities
Before the most recent initiatives, Wunti used to divert oil and petroleum products.
said, Nigeria was losing more than 700,000 bpd “We have incapacitated almost about 70%
to theft, engineering losses and shutdowns. This of what we have identified, and we will keep
has caused the country to miss its OPEC pro- identifying some of them,” he told Arise TV.
duction quotas and has also had negative eco- “It is mind-boggling what we discovered even
nomic effects, he remarked. as operators and every one of us saw the kind
“If you take an average oil price of $90 [per of sophistication, where illegal connections are
barrel], that will translate to somewhere in the put on every major trunk line, including direct
neighbourhood of $1.9bn [in] losses that we export lines on Forcados.”. ™

POLICY
Italian PM Meloni outlines ambitious new

policy agenda for Africa in Rome speech

REGIONAL ITALIAN PM Giorgia Meloni revealed her
government’s new policy towards Africa when
speaking at the “Med-Mediterranean dialogues”
Conference in Rome last week.
The high-level initiative promoted by the
Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ISPI (Ital-
ian Institute for International Political Studies) is
held every year, with the aim being to “rethink
traditional approaches to the area complement-
ing analyses of current challenges with new
ideas and suggestions and to draft a new positive
agenda, addressing shared challenges at both the
regional and the international level.”
Meloni wishes Italy could “retake its leading
role” in Africa, calling her cabinet’s new strategy Meloni named her plan after the founder of Eni (Photo: ISPI)
“Piano Mattei” – named after Enrico Mattei,
the former CEO and founder of the modern Meloni stressed the importance of helping the
Agip and Eni, the Italian state-owned energy pacification and reunification of Libya with the
corporation. final aim being to “rid the country of foreign
Meloni summarised the policy as “a virtu- mercenaries.” Even though Meloni didn’t elab-
ous model of co-operation between Africa and orate further on this point, she appears to have
the EU that doesn’t take a predatory stance, but been referring to Russian military contractors
rather a co-operative approach that recognises such as the Wagner Group, which supports
each state’s identity and potential.” the Tobruk-based faction led by Khalifa Haftar
Pointing out that security and stability in the in the ongoing Libyan civil conflict. Haftar is
Mediterranean are in the whole EU’s interest the leader of the faction known as the Libyan
and should be pursued with collective actions, National Army (LNA).

Week 49 08•December•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P11