Nigeria in darkness as pipeline attacks shut out 1,500mw

Nigeria has lost over 1,500 megawatts of electricity as a result of attacks on oil and gas facilities by militants in the Niger Delta, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said.

The NNPC, in its financial and operations report released on Wednesday, also said the capacity of the Warri refining and petrochemical company plummeted from 25.65 per cent in March to 6. 36 per cent in April.

The organisation also said it lost N19.43bn in the month of April because crude oil supply dropped from 59.27 million barrels in February to 57.43 million barrels in March.

“The NNPC’s monthly financial and operations report indicate an operational loss of 19.43bn in April 2016 as against 18.89bn in the month of March 2016. The deficit increased by 2.83 per cent in the month of April 2016 due to slight decline in revenue generation, which is attributed to the decrease in petroleum product sales by 7.11 per cent,” the report read.

“The NPDC’s crude sale for the month is still hampered by Forcados pipeline vandalism, which continued to deny the NPDC of monthly crude oil revenue of about 20.0bn.”

NNPC bemoaned the resurgence of vandalism saying it negatively affected crude oil production.

“Nigerian crude oil production for the month of March 2016 stood at 57.43 million barrels, which is 3.1 per cent lower than February 2016 production, and so far, the lowest recorded in the 12-month review period. Recent upsurge in vandalism has negatively impacted on the Nigerian crude oil production output, losing its African top crude oil producer to Angola,” it said.

“About 380,000barrels per day remained shut-in due to vandalism of the 48-inch subsea export line on 15th of February, 2016. Hence, all March cargoes were deferred until the repair is completed. Also, the nation has lost over 1,500MW of power supply to the damage as gas supply from Forcados, which is Nigeria’s major artery, accounts for 40 to 50 per cent of gas production. Incessant pipeline vandalism poses the greatest threat to the industry.”

The NNPC says, for the first time, it was “was able to get the buy-in of the upstream companies operating in Nigeria to enhance domestic supply of refined petroleum products by indicating readiness to make available additional funding to support import of products.”