The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has said that over 5000 cases of willful act of pipeline vandalism were recorded at the end of 2010 nationwide.
The Managing Director of Pipeline Product and Marketing Company, PPMC, marketing and distribution arm of the NNPC, Prince Haruna Momoh, said the high rate of vandalism obstructed the supply and distribution of petroleum products both crude and refined during the period in review.
Momoh, who spoke with journalists on the sidelines of a gas conference in Lagos, noted that that the situation is reaching an alarming level, as since the late 1990’s the NNPC witnessed between 450 and 1,000 cases of vandalism annually.
Broken down, he said that within the last 10 years, NNPC has spend over N174.57 billion for pipelines repairs of a total of 16,083 pipeline breaks. While the majority of about 15,685 representing 97.5 percent of the total were from acts of vandalism, the balance of about 398 cases or 2.4 per cent were due to ruptures.
NNPC records showed that System 2E/2EX, which convey products from the Port Harcourt Refinery to Aba- Enugu-Makurdi depots onwards to Yola-Enugu-Auchi appears to be the haven of pipeline vandalism in the country, particularly the Port Harcourt-Aba/Isiala-Ngwa axis.
In all, about 8,105 line breaks were recorded along the system 2E within the period representing about 50.3 percent of the total. The attacks left the NNPC with a cost of N78.15 billion in product loses and pipeline repairs.
On gas, statistics also showed that the incessant attacks on the Trans Forcados Pipeline have put it out of service since May 2009, thus making it impossible to evacuate crude oil/condensate from some Shell operated facilities. Currently, over 300,000 bpd and 140mscfd production have been deferred, with about N11 billion spent on the repair of about 55 points vandalized on the line.
The NNPC further said it spent over US$42.952million to execute a two-phase repair of 74 damaged points in System 2C-1 – the Escravos Warri Crude Oil Pipelines which started in September 2009, to enable the start up of the Warri and Kaduna refineries.
Momoh said the development led to the increasing use of trucks for products for the transportation of petroleum products in the country.
He revealed that the corporation has commenced the process of resuscitating its 21 depots across the country as part of efforts to ensure equitable distribution of petroleum products through pipelines that crisscross the country.
He added that significant progress hd been made in this regard, saying, “we are trying to successfully pump products by pipelines to our depots in Mina, Suleja, Gusau, Kano, and we are already in Jos and as I speak, my operations personnel are also trying to establish the line to Gombe and Maiduguri. So, we are on top of our jobs, and we are doing our best to make sure that all our depots in the country are sufficiently wet with petroleum products.”
He, however, argued that if urgent steps were not taken by all Nigerians to stop the increasing cases of pipeline vandalism, it would be difficult for the PPMC to efficiently distribute petroleum products especially in other parts of the country.
In particular, he appealed to the press to create awareness about the consequences of pipeline vandalism. “I will urge the press to help us with an awareness campaign that the less our pipelines are vandalised the more efficient we will be in the distribution of petroleum products nationwide.
All our depots, there are 21 of them that we have for the purposes of distribution of petroleum products and they are all ready. The combined capacity of the 21 depots nationwide, excluding holding capacities at refineries can provide products sufficient for up to 32 days of petrol, 65 days for kerosene and 42 days for diesel.”