The Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) has raised alarm over what it described as the expiration of oil pipelines in the country; they said this during an interactive section with the press in Lagos last week.
The chairman, technical committee of the association; Dr Lucky Akhiwu informed that, in the petroleum act, it is mandatory for NNPC to change the pipelines, which, according to him, the corporation has not been doing that.
According to him, “it is important that after every 25 years, you must replace the pipelines, but NNPC has even defaulted those pipelines have been there for over 50 years even before the civil war, and this is wrong and some of the reasons dredging cannot be carried out in the eastern port.
Speaking earlier, the President of the association Dr. MkGeorge Onyung lauded the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), for its five-phased cessation of waivers, stressing that the gesture would no doubt open a new window of investment for the country, as well as significant employment opportunities; even as he assured that the ship owners would synergize with the agency and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that NIMASA actually midwife the initiative.
“Our Cabotage law has been with us for 15 years now; we’ll see it as contribution to ensuring that we open the doors for people to understand what Cabotage really means and the opportunities in it.
“The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had established a committee between the agency and stakeholders to look into the challenges affecting the waivers in the last five years.
“We must have both ship building and ship repair yard in Nigeria, there is need to open up for acquisition”
“Within the next five years, the Nigeria Content will be in the region of 3.5 billion dollars and in order to enjoy these benefits, we need to upgrade our capacity.
“The upcoming conference will open opportunities to collaborate toward ship building opportunities in Nigeria,” Onyung said.
He said the association was working toward decongesting the Lagos ports by reviving the other ports in the country to create more jobs for Nigerians.
Onyung said Nigeria was blessed with over 840 kiloliters of Nautical miles of coastline and nearly 10,000 kilometers of inland waters, adding that if Norwegian which annually had their waters frozen for eight months still owned as much as about 20 percent of internationally trading ships, then Nigeria with fresh waters all through the year has no excuse for not committing to serious manpower development and ship acquisition.
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