Kunle Kalejaye 08 March 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru, says the corporation has completed six pipeline projects planned to supply gas to industries and power stations across the country.
Three other projects are currently ongoing, and in various stages of completion, the NNPC group managing director said at the recent 26th edition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, SPE, Oloibiri Lecture Series and Energy Forum, OLEF, in Abuja.
He listed the completed pipeline projects as the 96-kilometre Oben-Geregu, Escravos-Warri-Oben (110 kilometres), Emuren-Itoki (50 kilometres), Itoki-Olorunshogo (31 kilometres), Imo River-Alaoji (24 kilometres) and Ukanafun-Calabar (128 kilometres).
As for the ongoing projects, he said these included “the strategic East-West Obiafo/Obirikom to Oben, OB3, pipeline (127 kilometres) scheduled for completion by the end of 2017, the looping of the Escravos-Lagos Gas Pipeline System from Warri to Lagos (which) is scheduled for completion by July 2017, the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano pipeline (650 kilometres) is currently on tender”.
Baru stated that the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano pipeline project would soon be awarded under a contractor financing scheme.
The NNPC boss used the occasion to appeal to militants in the Niger Delta to stop attacks on oil facilities.
He maintained that given Nigeria’s enormous reserves in gas as the 9th largest in the world, the nation should be able to tackle the unemployment and infrastructural challenges staring it in the face, but noted that attacks on oil facilities and disruption of oil activities were crippling not only the oil and gas sector but power generation as well.
“I will like to use this medium to appeal to the militants in the Niger Delta to stop the attack on pipeline infrastructure to enable us sustain our plan and grow the industry for the benefit of all Nigerians. Gas pipeline vandalism has been the most disruptive challenge to supply across the country, but more recently in the West.
“The Trans-Forcados crude oil pipeline (TFP) has been the major victim of attacks, so also the ELPS (Escravos-Lagos Pipeline system). As we speak today, there is enough gas to generate about 4,800 megawatts of power and 6,000 megawatts by second quarter of 2017, based on our gas supply plan,” he said.
He urged for peace in the Niger Delta for government to achieve thi