Oil & pipeline theft: Niger
Niger's growing oil sector, centred on its eastern fields and the export pipeline running toward the coast, creates infrastructure that stretches across remote terrain and is exposed to tapping, sabotage and theft. A long pipeline through sparsely governed areas is difficult to guard by presence alone. Protecting that revenue means watching the network from above and hardening the systems that run it.
Revenue bleeding from a network too long to guard
Persistent overhead surveillance detects illegal connections, unusual vehicle activity and disturbances along the pipeline route, giving operators early warning across terrain no ground patrol can cover. Control-system hardening protects the operational-technology network that runs the pipeline itself. Together they defend both the physical asset and the systems behind it.
Where a pipeline crosses contested ground
Niger's export pipeline runs through remote areas where insurgency and smuggling are already concerns, so infrastructure protection overlaps with the wider security picture. The same surveillance that watches the pipeline can inform border and counter-insurgency efforts along its route. That overlap makes integrated coverage more valuable than a standalone pipeline watch.
How engagement works in Niger
Unstrat represents the surveillance and cyber-protection manufacturers directly as an independent, non-aligned prime vendor, with one accountable team from specification through in-region sustainment and end-use certified systems. The surveillance and control-system picture stays sovereign, with no external power granted access to critical infrastructure. Independence is what keeps a strategic revenue source genuinely under national control.
Defending a pipeline too long to guard
An oil-theft programme in Niger begins with a briefing scoping protection across the eastern fields and the export pipeline toward the coast, with export controls and end-use approvals confirmed before any representation. As a single accountable channel, Unstrat matches capability to a network across remote, sparsely governed terrain where insurgency and smuggling are already concerns. Persistent overhead surveillance for illegal connections and disturbances, with control-system hardening for the operational-technology network, defends both the physical asset and the systems behind it and informs border efforts along the line. Fielding is phased, with in-region sustainment so operators maintain the capability, and localisation arrangements scoped per programme, subject to export controls and end-use approvals. The advantage protects a strategic revenue source, sovereign to Niger.
Relevant capability
Adjacent priorities in Niger
Power grids, water systems and transport networks face both physical and cyber attack. Hardening the control systems behind them, defending the networks around them and countering the drone threat above them keeps essential services running under pressure.
Problem pageNiger's mineral wealth, including its long-standing uranium production and widespread artisanal gold mining, draws unlicensed extraction across remote areas the state struggles to reach, and in the Sahel context that activity can finance armed groups. Illicit sites drain strategic resources and revenue. Locating and monitoring them across the desert interior is both a fiscal and a security priority.
Problem pageContraband, fuel, weapons and untaxed goods cross Niger's vast desert borders along established trans-Saharan routes wherever surveillance is thinnest, draining customs revenue and often feeding armed groups. The same tracks have carried trade for centuries and now carry illicit flows too. Concentrating enforcement where the traffic moves requires seeing the whole frontier, not fragments of it.
Problem pageRelevant solutions
Power, water, transport and port systems assessed, hardened and watched continuously, by a team with no foreign government to report the findings to.
Solution page →Persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance across land, sea and air, tasked on national priorities and accountable to the flag that owns it.
Solution page →Niger: security context
Niger's priorities are shaped by its desert expanse: surveillance of vast, remote borders, a continuing counter-insurgency requirement, and protection of mining sites far from the centre. It is an environment defined by distance, where awareness must reach places that are hard to hold.
One accountable, non-aligned partner gives Niger a coherent counterpart for those priorities: desert border surveillance, counter-insurgency support and mining-site protection through a single channel. A defence ministry gains end-use certified equipment, in-region sustainment and localisation arrangements scoped per programme.
About this challenge
Tapping, bunkering and sabotage of oil infrastructure drain national revenue and cause environmental damage. Persistent overhead surveillance detects illegal connections and vessel movements, while control-system hardening protects the pipeline network itself.
Frequently asked questions
How is a long pipeline protected across remote terrain?
Persistent overhead surveillance monitors the full route for illegal connections and disturbances, giving early warning where patrols cannot reach. Priorities are set by your operators. A briefing can scope coverage for the most exposed segments.
Does protection include the control systems?
Yes. Control-system hardening defends the operational-technology network that runs the pipeline, which is as much a target as the physical line. It is delivered as part of one package. We can outline how the physical and cyber layers integrate.
Who controls the infrastructure's security systems?
Niger does. As a non-aligned prime vendor Unstrat delivers sovereign-controlled systems with no external access. Book a briefing to see how that is guaranteed.