*Says N800m spent on vandalized pipelines
28 January 2014, Abuja: The Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, said that gas supply to power plants will improve over the next five weeks, following the massive repair works on ruptured gas pipeline in the Niger Delta region.
The Corporation also said that a total of N800 million had so far been spent on a number of vandalised gas pipelines.
The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, who disclosed this in Abuja, said with the ongoing repairs on the pipelines which he blamed it on the activities of saboteurs, gas supply to power plants will improve appreciably in the next five weeks.
Yakubu attributed the recent drop in gas supply for power generation on the rising incidents of outright sabotage of some crucial gas pipelines, which significantly eroded available gas to the power plants.
He recalled that the period gas pipelines vandalism akin to the recent incidence was between 2007 and 2009, during the peak of militancy in the Niger Delta.
According to him, “you will recall that attacks on gas pipeline were most severe in 2007 and 2009 at the peak of Niger Delta militancy. However, following the federal Government amnesty, we saw a major improvement which is testament to the effectives of the amnesty programme.
“We never saw any attack in the last three years, so these recent attacks on gas pipeline is just a surprise to us.”
Yakubu, who said last week that over 30% of the 480MMsf/d installed gas supply capacity was out due mainly to vandalism, stressed further that “the lost gas is the equivalent to the gas requirement to generate about 1, 600MW of electricity.”
He listed the pipelines involved to include the Escravos-Warri stretch of the Escravos Lagos Pipeline System, ELPS, which accounts for 190mmcf/d, the Trans-Forcados crude pipeline, 230mmcd/d.
*Chris Ochayi-Vanguard
