NNPC reports 106 pipeline vandalism incidents in June

*Technicians carrying out repair work on a vandalised pipeline.

Sam Ikeotuonye 

Lagos — The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, encountered 106 cases of breaches in its pipeline infrastructure network across the country in June this year, representing a major increase from the 60 points vandalised in the month of May.

The NNPC said in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report, MFOR, for the month of June that the vandalism figure for the month under review showed 77 per cent rise in cases of oil pipeline vandalism in its network.

According to the report, a bulk of the pipeline vandalism incidents happened on the Aba-Enugu axis in the system 2E pipeline corridor in the eastern part of the country, which accounted for 25 per cent of the total number of breaches.

The Lagos Atlas Cove-Mosimi axis of the system 2B in the western part of the country had 23 per cent of the compromised pipeline points, the NNPC report stated.

The Ibadan-Ilorin leg of the System 2B pipeline encountered the third most cases of breaches as it accounted for 18 per cent of affected lines while the PHC-Aba section of the system 2E was responsible for 13 per cent of the affected pipeline.

The report, which indicated that other areas of the pipeline network outside the mentioned four accounted for the remaining 21 per cent of cumulative line breaks, stated that despite the line breaches during the period under review, the NNPC ensured continuous flow of petroleum products across the country.

It said the corporation supplied 1.76 billion litres of premium motor spirit, PMS, also known as petrol, during the month, which, according to the report, translated to 58.65 million litres of petrol per day.

It noted that in the process of sustaining uninterrupted flow of petrol, the NNPC had continued to monitor the daily stock of petrol and other petroleum products across the nation.

Reporting on the gas sector, the NNPC stated that 223.98 billion cubic feet, bcf, of natural gas was produced in the month under review, which translated to an average daily production of 7,466.09 million standard cubic feet per day, mmscfd.

The report further stated: “For the period June 2018 to June 2019, a total of 3,063.89bcf of gas was produced representing an average daily production of 7,873.58mmscfd during the period.

“Period-to-date, production from Joint Ventures (JVs), Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) and NPDC contributed about 68.93 per cent, 21.34 per cent and 9.74 per cent respectively, to the total national gas production”.