Pipeline vandalism increased by 29% in March, says NNPC

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says vandalism of pipelines across the country increased by 29.63 percent in March.

This is contained in the NNPC monthly financial and operations report (MFOR) for March 2021.

In a statement on Sunday, Kennie Obateru, the group general manager of NNPC public affairs division, said the report indicated that 70 pipeline points were destroyed in March, representing a 29.63 percent increase from 54 points vandalised in February.

He said the Port Harcourt area accounted for 63 percent of the vandalised points while Mosimi and Gombe area accounted for the remaining 21 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

The national oil company said the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), its downstream subsidiary, recorded N234.63 billion revenue from the sale of white products in the month of March — representing a 24.7% increase from the ₦188.15billion sales recorded in the previous month.

It noted that total revenues generated from the sales of white products for the period of March 2020 to March 2021 stood at N2.129 trillion, where petrol contributed about 99.24% of the total sales with a value of N2.113 trillion.

“In terms of volume, the above value translates to 1.78 billion litres of white products sold and distributed by PPMC in the month of March 2021 compared to 1.4 billion litres in the month of February 2021,” the statement reads.

“This volume is made up of 1.75billion litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and 0.45million litres of Automotive Gas Oil (AGO).

“Total sale of white products for the period of March 2020 to March 2021 stood at 17.374billion litres and PMS accounted for 17.265billion litres or 99.37%.”

The corporation said it continues to diligently monitor the daily stock of PMS to achieve uninterrupted supply, effective distribution and zero fuel queue across Nigeria.

“In the gas sector, a total of 222.74billion cubic feet (bcf) of natural gas was produced in the month March 2021 translating to an average daily production of 7,183.33million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd),” the statement further reads.

“For the period of March 2020 to March 2021, a total of 2,911.62bcf of gas was produced representing an average daily production of 7,409.60mmscfd during the period.

“Production from Joint Ventures (JVs), Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) and NPDC contributed about 63.23%, 19.78% and 63.99% respectively to the total national gas production.

“In terms of natural gas off-take, commercialization and utilization, out of the 210.55bcf supplied in March 2021, a total of 138.38bcf was commercialized, consisting of 45.42bcf and 92.96bcf for the domestic and export market respectively.

“This translates to a total supply of 1,465.42mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 2,998.26mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month.

“This implies that 63.18% of the average daily gas produced was commercialized while the balance of 36.82% was re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared.

“Gas flare rate was 9.50% for the month under review (i.e. 671.13mmscfd) compared to average gas flare rate of 7.25% (i.e. 532.37mmscfd) for the period of March 2020 to March 2021.”