12% drop in oil  pipeline vandalism increases Nigeria’s earnings

Baring major downward swing in the price of crude oil at the international commodities market or shift in OPEC’s support for a sustained increase in Nigeria’s contribution to global crude oil basin, the country will be way into achieving its earnings projections from oil. Nigeria recently resumed crude oil export from Focados export terminal after an attack.

This follow the revelation of a 12 per cent decline in the vandalisatrion of Nigeria’s oil production facilities with emphasis on pipelines.
Businessam.com gathered Tuesday that Federal Government’s extensive engagement with oil and gas host communities and related stakeholders in the oil rich Niger Deltas is yielding the desired dividends with the attainment of 12.77 per cent reduction in pipeline vandalism especially in the downward operation. Growth in Nigeria’s enhanced  foreign reserves is consequent upon improved earnings from oil among other exports.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had in its April 2017 report released Monday  disclosed that downstream pipeline sabotage decreased from 94 pipeline vandalized points in March, 2017 to 82 in April 2017, representing a 12.77% reduction relative to the previous month. A total of 214 pipeline vandalisation points were recorded in the corresponding period in 2016.

With crude oil price standing below 48 dollar per barrel, Nigeria is projection on a 2.2 million barrel daily  off take even as OPEC said recently that it was not about to hold down on Nigeria and Libya’s production limits within the ambit of the organisation’s use of production cut in simulating price.

NNPC said that it in terms of products availability in the local market within the period under review, it maintained adequate stock of over 1.2 billion litres of petrol sufficient for more than 34 days forward consumption.

It was also recorded that during the period, the NNPC in an effort to reduce to the barest minimum the incidences of fire outbreak in the 21 depots across the country, received bids from no fewer than 37 companies to supply six triple agent firefighting trucks for the operation of the Nigerian Pipelines and Storage Company (NPSC), one of the downstream subsidiaries of NNPC.

The report noted that NNPC has continued to import Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) and Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK) to supplement local refining, while the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN continues to make available foreign exchange to marketers to import AGO and ATK.

The April 2017 report which is the 21st edition of the NNPC Financial and Operations report also noted that average national daily gas production stood at 242.32 Billion Cubic Feet, BCF or an average of 8,077.19 Million Standard Cubic feet per day, representing 6.79% increase relative to the previous month.

Comparatively, the daily average natural gas supply to gas power plants slightly decreased to 672mmscfd (or equivalent to power generation of 2,787 MW in April, 2017) relative to 689mmscfd recorded in last month. However, this supply is also 22.85% higher than the corresponding supply recorded in April 2016 of 547mmscfd, the report stated