REVISITING LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF OIL AND GAS PIPELINE INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT AND VANDALISATION

Abstract

The nature of Oil and gas requires transportation through pipelines for sustained availability and security. These Pipelines must not be subjected to economic crimes such as sabotage and vandalization. The recent wave of sustained attacks on oil installations across some developing countries in Africa often attributed and wrongly too to rights campaigners, and agitators call for further strengthening of pipelines from being subject of attacks by vandals hiding under the pretext of agitation. The petroleum industry is influenced by national law, international laws, and best standards practices due to the universality of product usage, regulations are provided for by statute and, when breached, constitute both torts and crime, punishable with sanctions. The paper utilizes the doctrinal research approach and focuses on content analysis of relevant documents using primary and secondary sources of legislation such as case laws, text materials, and journals. The paper appraised the efficacy of the Oil pipelines Act in ensuring pipeline security in the face of security challenges in some developing countries such as Nigeria, Niger Republic, and some other West African subregions. The paper recommends an urgent amendment to the existing Act and advocates institutionalizing community participation in securing pipelines and decentralizing policing structures in congruence constituencies to ensure the continued and sustained availability of Energy to the West African dependants.