The Trans-Niger Pipeline, a major pipeline capable of transporting about 180,000 barrels of crude per day, has stopped transporting the product since mid-June due to theft. Despite the development, the pipeline has not been formally shut, Bloomberg reported Wednesday quoting a source familiar with details of the pipeline operations. The report said the pipeline capacity is about 15 per cent of Nigeria’s most recent average daily output. In recent years, oil theft has become a never-ending problem in Nigeria’s oil industry.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari, had in April disclosed that Nigeria lost $4 billion to oil theft at the rate of 200,000 barrels per day in 2021.
He added that the country already lost $1.5 billion so far in 2022 because pipeline vandalism has escalated. Mr Kyari said the country was losing 95 per cent of oil production to thieves at Bonny Terminal, Rivers State. The development came amidst another claim by the Chairman of the United Bank of Africa, Tony Elumelu, that Nigeria was losing much to oil vandals at its terminals. Mr Elumelu had on March 17 said Nigeria was losing 95 per cent of production at the Bonny terminal to vandals making Shell declare force majeure production activities on that field.
“Look at Bonny Terminal that should be receiving 200k barrels per day, instead it received less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator @shell to declare fe majeure,” Mr Elumelu tweeted in March.
The federal government in its recent draft fiscal strategy paper for 2023 through 2025, presented by the Minister of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, showed that oil revenue underperformed due to significant oil production shortfalls such as shut-ins resulting from pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft.
