Taming the Monster of Oil Bunkering and Gas Pipeline Vandalism via thisdaylive
A recent revelation by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that it recorded 77 per cent rise in cases of oil pipeline vandalism in June 2019 has validated Nigeria’s rating in the global oil and gas industry as a high-risk environment. Ejiofor Alike reports
NNPC had further revealed that Ibadan-Ilorin leg of the System 2B pipeline accounted for 18 per cent of affected lines, followed by the Port Harcourt -Aba section of the system 2E, which was responsible for 13 per cent of the affected pipeline. In several cases in the past, the pipelines were simply targeted for destructive attacks by militants and other criminal elements to press home their demands from the government or the oil companies.
Some of the companies affected by these attacks on the Forcados pipeline include: Shell, Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, Shoreline Resources Limited, Neconde, First Hydrocarbon Nigeria and NPDC. Indeed, since the first highly coordinated attacks on oil facilities and high-profile abduction of oil workers in February 2006 by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta , Nigeria’s daily oil production has not recovered to the pre-militancy level of 2.5 million barrels per day recorded in 2005 due to oil theft and destructive attacks on the pipelines.
After scooping oil, these vandals lack the technology to fix the pipelines, thus leading to oil spills , environmental pollution and huge economic losses by the government and the companies. During a meeting at the NNPC Towers in Abuja, the Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, who is the Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee of NEC on Crude Oil Theft, Prevention and Control, called on stakeholders to join forces and work towards eradicating the menace of crude oil theft that is currently on the upward swing in the country.
Also in attendance were representatives of the Police, Navy, Army, Civil Defence and the International Oil Companies and some indigenous operators.From the Gulf of Mexico, UK’s Red Sea, to the Persian Gulf, no oil producing region faces such country-specific risks like the Gulf of Guinea, which is largely dominated by Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
The Chairman and Managing Director of the ExxonMobil, Mr. Paul McGrath, who is also the Chairman of the OPTS told a conference organised by energy reporters in Lagos recently that Nigeria’s oil and gas industry faces many challenges. He noted that Nigeria ranks amongst the top 10 countries with highest cost of producing oil and gas- equivalents per barrel.
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