Yemisi Izuora
The federal Government says Nigeria is losing at least $2.38m daily since militants attacked at least three major gas pipelines over the weekend in the Niger Delta region.
The estimate is coming a day after the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), admitted shutdown in two of Nigeria’s four refineries due to separate attacks on country’s several oil pipelines Tuesday.
Power and works minister, Babatunde Fashola, who made the disclosure said the attacks on the gas pipelines belonging to the Nigeria Gas Company would also affect the 600-megawatt Olorunsogo power plant in Lagos and others elsewhere in the country and will be a bad omen for Nigeria’s already abysmal electricity generation, which currently stands around 4,120 megawatt per hour.
“The sabotaged gas pipeline which contributes to the Escravos Lagos Pipeline System (ELPS) has led to a loss of 160 million cubic feet of gas daily. At a cost of $2.50 per thousand cubic feet, this loss means about a $400,000 loss to the country on a daily basis (N78,800,000 daily) in gas volume,” the minister said in a statement.
“This is in addition to losses to be incurred daily from affected power generation ($1,988,223 or N391,680,000 daily). The combined daily loss to the country is therefore estimated at N470,479,931 [$2.38m].”
The minister said repair works for the pipelines is estimated to gulp $609,137, adding that the weekend incidents were a setback for the efforts of the government to improve gas supplies to the power plants.
“Such efforts led to previously offline plants like Ihovbor and Sapele coming back online and the subsequent output making up for the loss in power. The pipelines are being actively monitored for further attacks or other unforeseen impacts,” he stated.
“Available records show that six incidences of vandalism from December 2014 to February 2015 which affected the Trans Forcados Pipeline (at Oben, Sapele, Oredo ) and Escravos Lagos Pipeline System (CNL) led to a loss of 1,100 million cubic feet of gas.
According to industry experts, a loss of 200 million cubic feet of gas is equivalent to a power reduction of 700MW.”
On Wednesday, the NNPC said the attacks have led to the shutdown of two refineries in Kaduna and Port Harcourt, a day after NNPC spokesman Ohi Alegbe told Anadolu Agency there had been shut-in of pipelines but denied that the refineries were shut down.
“The NNPC on Wednesday announced the operational shutdown of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries owing to crude supply challenges arising from recent attacks on vital crude oil pipelines,” Alegbe admitted in a statement.
“The plants were shut simultaneously on Sunday after the Bonny-Okrika crude supply line to the Port Harcourt Refinery and the Escravos-Warri crude supply line to the Kaduna Refinery suffered breaches.