…Wants maritime schools to evolve new training curriculum
Ahead of 2019 commencement of operation by the refinery being constructed by Dangote Group, the General Manager, Monitoring and Compliance in the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Captain Iheanacho Ebubeogu has called on the Federal Government to properly define pipeline vandalization and stealing and bunkering if the country is to serve as one of the bunkering stations of the world.
Speaking at a conference in Lagos tagged, A Day with Nigerian Maritime Students, organized by Platform Communications, Ebubeogu maintained that bunkering is a legitimate business with huge capital gains hence the need for government to separate it from those who go breaking pipes and stealing oil saying that those ones were not doing bunkering but thieves who should be treated as such.
According to him,” I am saying that if Dangote comes up, one thing that Nigeria will benefit from it is that we might be one of the bunkering stations of the international maritime world and if it is going to be possible, we need to distinguish between pipeline vandalization and stealing and bunkering. Bunkering is a legitimate business and let us find out why it is not legitimate and let us separate it from those who go breaking pipes and stealing oil, they are not doing bunkering, they are thieves, they ae vandals and should be so classified as different from a man who is going to build a filling station to supply ships with fuel”.
He further stated that now that demands for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for domestic cooking was increasing, Maritime training institutions should redesign their curriculum so as to expose the students to the new trend in handling those type of cargoes and the safety that go with it.
He said,” Our maritime environment is book to read, we are diversifying our economy towards three areas; one is solid mineral, the other is agriculture and the other trying to refine our petroleum products which is what Dangote is doing now. The demand for LNG for domestic cooking is increasing. The schools have to respond to handling of these types of cargoes because they are all going to be trans shipped by ships, they are all going to be handled in ports and therefore, ports designs and constructions, training of manpower that will work in this industry and everything surrounding it must speak to all these new prospects that are coming up”
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