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Nigeria’s Economy Doomed As Villagers Break 300,000bpd Pipeline In Rivers State

Published

2 years ago

September 12, 2022

The dream of Nigeria ramping up revenue from crude oil production has been dealt another deadly blow following a siege on a pipeline by unruly villagers in the Bodo community of River State. According to a BusinesDay Report, the villagers are currently feasting on the 300,000 barrels per day pipeline located in the community.

Engineers stopped from effecting repairs For the past two weeks, teams of engineers from Shell Petroleum Development Company have been prevented by the villagers from accessing and effecting repairs on the pipeline located on the Trans Niger Pipeline, an oil pipeline with a 300,000 barrels per day crude capacity.

Sources stated that the development had forced engineers to suspend integrity tests and planned inspection visits to the location on the 24”/28” right of way at Bodo Zone 1 since last month. It is estimated that Nigeria will lose about $1 billion from the ongoing vandalism at the current oil price.

The villagers have prevented maintenance specialists from accessing the site and even destroyed vehicles belonging to Shell Petroleum as they attempted to enter the community.

Government and security officials are said to be engaging the community leaders in a negotiation to allow contractors to identify and seal the leak. Another piece of information says another leak was made on September 2, meaning both lines have been affected. The pipeline was broken illegally in 150 places, according to checks by PEGANSSAN on the site where the theft happened.

Two oil fields shut down Recent data show that Nigeria is losing 95 per cent of oil production to oil thieves at oil hub Bonny. Nigeria can only secure 3,000 out of 239,000 barrels running in the pipeline from Bonny Terminal, according to the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC).

The current siege has forced the NNPC and its Joint Venture partners to shut down two oil production fields. Going by the current crude oil price of $94 per barrel, the worth of crude theft now stands at over $10 billion or N4.3 trillion. Crude oil theft has made Nigeria lose its status as Africa’s biggest oil producer to Angola in May as the country’s production plummeted to record lows.