Pipeline vandalism up by 42.9% in October -- NNPC

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Tuesday raised alarm over rising incidence of pipeline vandalism across the country.

In a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES, the NNPC spokesperson, Ndu Ughamadu, said the corporation’s pipeline network suffered a 42.9 percent increase in the incidents of vandalism as at October last year, compared to the previous month during the year.

Mr Ughamadu said a breakdown of breaches on its infrastructure showed about 219 pipeline vandalised points during the month under review, compared to 125 incidents in September of the same year.

According to him, the findings were captured in the NNPC Monthly Financial and Operations Report for October 2018.

Of the breaches, he said four vandalized pipeline points were not repaired, while one point ruptured.

The report said cases of vandalism of pipeline facilities were high along Ibadan-Ilorin and Aba-Enugu axis, which accounted for 81 (40 percent) and 39 (18 percent) vandalized points respectively.

Mr. Ughamadu said despite the challenge posed by pipeline vandalism, the NNPC has managed to ensure adequate supply of petrol, by ensuring there were no queues across the country throughout the Christmas and new year period.

Also the NNPC said it realised about $640.35million from the export of crude oil and gas for October, 2018, which was higher than the $527.70 million earned in September 2018.

Mr Ughamadu said the oil receipt showed $450.44million from crude oil sale, with gas and miscellaneous receipts standing at about $173.92 million and $15.99 million respectively.

In the downstream sector, the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a downstream subsidiary of NNPC, recorded revenue receipt of ₦231.33billion from sales of white products in the month of October 2018, compared with ₦150.25 billion sold in of September 2018.

On revenues generated from the sales of white products for the period October 2017 to October 2018, the NNPC was about ₦2.684 trillion, with premium motor spirit (PMS) contributing about 88.32 percent of the total sales value of ₦2.371 trillion.

To ensure continuous increase of PMS supply and effective distribution across the country, Mr Ughamadu said about 1.66 billion litres of petrol, translating to 55.50milion litres per day, were supplied for the month under review.

On gas, out of about 1,066.88 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd) of gas supplied to the domestic market in October 2018, about 627.33mmscfd, representing 58.81 percent, was supplied to gas-fired power plants to generate about 2,349MW of electricity.

An average of 615mmscfd was supplied to the power plants to generate 2,303MW in September 2018, while the balance of 439.35mmscfd, or 41.19 percent was supplied to other industries.

Similarly, for the period between October 2017 and October 2018, an average of 1,188.58mmscfd of gas was supplied to the domestic market, comprising of an average of 744.06mmscfd or (62.60 percent) as gas supply to the power plants and 444.52mmscfd or (37.40 percent) as gas supply to industries.