E-Business
SPDC Deploys HD Aerial Cameras to Track Spills, Crude Theft
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), Nigeria’s leading energy giant, has deployed state-of-the-art high definition cameras for quick detection of and response to crude oil spills from its facilities. The cameras will also help in tracking vandalism of SPDC joint venture assets.
Igo Weli, SPDC’s general manager, disclosed this on Monday at a media workshop for journalists in Warri, Delta State. “The cameras are attached to specialised helicopters which carry out daily overflight over our facilities. This measure has improved the surveillance of our Joint Venture assets.”
In addition, Weli said SPDC had implemented anti-theft protection mechanisms on key infrastructure, such as wellheads and manifolds to stem constant attacks from vandals and thereby prevent and minimise sabotage-related spills. According to him, the daily loss of over 11,000 barrels of oil per day in 2018 and the threat to the integrity of the joint venture assets necessitated the multi-pronged approach to protecting what he called ‘critical national assets.’
He said, “We collaborate with community leaders, traditional rulers, civil societies and state governments in the Niger Delta to implement several initiatives and partnerships to raise awareness on the negative impact of crude oil theft and illegal oil refining. Such public enlightenment programmes on the negative impacts to people and the environment help to build greater trust in spill response and clean-up processes.”
Weli noted that SPDC would sustain its air and ground surveillance to complement the efforts of government security forces in checking crude theft, pipeline vandalism and illegal refining. “But for the efforts of Operation Delta Safe in protecting critical oil and gas assets, the situation would have gone beyond control. Weli said, calling on the Operation Delta Safe, a special oil and gas asset protection force, and other government security forces to intensify their activities around oil and gas facilities.
In its June 2019 monthly report, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation which controls Nigeria’s 55 percent interest in the SPDC JV had also reported a 77% rise in oil pipeline vandalism and that 106 pipeline breaches were recorded in June, up from 60 in May.
Also speaking at the workshop, SPDC’s General Manager, Safety and Environment, Chidube Nnene-Anochie, said, noted that the majority of spill incidents on SPDC pipelines were as a result of sabotage. “We are burdened by the continuous increase in cases of sabotage and theft. Oil spills due to theft and sabotage of facilities as well as illegal refining, cause the most environmental damage from oil and gas operations in the Niger Delta.”
According to Nnene-Anochie, SPDC removed more than 1,160 illegal theft points from its pipelines between 2012 and end of 2018, adding that the attendant spills from the theft points were sometimes made worse by challenges of access to the incident sites to investigate and stop leaks. “We track the progress of our spill response from when we learn about the leak to when clean-up is completed and certified by regulators.”
Represented by SPDC’s Compliance Monitoring Lead, Temitope Ajibade, Nnene-Anochie said no spill was acceptable to the company. “A key priority for Shell companies in Nigeria remains to achieve the goal of no spills from our operations. No spill is acceptable, and we work hard to prevent them. However, SPDC cleans and remediates areas impacted by spills from its facilities irrespective of the cause.”
Other steps aimed at stemming crude theft, she explained, include SPDC promotion of alternative livelihoods through Shell’s flagship youth entrepreneurship programme, Shell LiveWIRE. “Between 2003 when Shell LiveWIRE was launched in Nigeria and now, the programme has trained 7,072 Niger Delta youths in enterprise development and provided business start-up grants to 3,817.
Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.
The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.
In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.
Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.
Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
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