Ike Amos
24 July 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja — Nigeria’s crude oil output has dropped by 150,000 barrels as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Monday, disclosed that the Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) in Ogoniland, Rivers State, had been vandalised.
Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr Maikanti Baru, who stated this at the extraordinary session of the Council of Ministers of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation, APPO, in Abuja, stated that the vandalisation of the pipeline had affected Nigeria’s oil output of 2.2 million recorded last week.
He said, “
Unfortunately, we have not been able to sustain oil production of 2.2 million barrels recorded last week, because we get challenges. As I am talking to you, this morning, the Trans-Niger pipeline has been breached in Ogoniland, and that is 150,000 barrels of oil that have been knocked off.
“That has been fairly an issue with that area. We hope we can continue our dialogue and things would return to what it should be.”
On the ongoing conference, Baru stated that Nigeria gave birth to African Petroleum Producers Association (APPA) which, as part of reorganisation is changing its name to African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO), giving it some form of permanency in the organisation.
He said, “Nigeria continues to be dominant in APPO and whatever happens is going to affect what happens in Nigeria. There is a great drive in Nigeria to reposition the whole the industry. We are looking beyond the immediate, and transforming ourselves.
“We have had it earlier where we are producing, refining and satisfying ourselves, however, there are certain issues surrounding the development of globalisation, whereby the government is going out of doing commercial business. That will be the next phase in bringing back the glory. There is a huge market in Africa, and we are going to take advantage of that.”