AJoint Investigation Visit (JIV) comprising security and regulatory agencies, community representatives and Aiteo personnel will be constituted and deployed to the site where fire broke out on the Nembe Creek Truck line to attend to the necessary incident formalities.
This is coming following confirmation by the Joint Task Force (JTF) that the fire was caused by sabotage of the pipeline at Awoba, Rivers State.
JTF also claimed it has identified some culprits and is set to take necessary action.
Aiteo said that working on further site preparation and mobilisation of specialised equipment to the swamps for further remedial action to facilitate a quick return to full functionality.
The company had declared a force majeure on the 150,000 barrels per day Nembe Creek Trunk line because of an outbreak of fire.
The fire outbreak was discovered by the company’s surveillance team comprising the JTF, FSS around NCTL RoW near Awoba today
It said it Operations Emergency Response team was immediately activated and following its urgent intervention and containment action, it was constrained to shut in injection as well as other related operations into the NCTL.
In accordance with standard procedure other injectors were asked to do the same.
The NCTL has, hitherto, enjoyed smooth operations preceding this incident founding suspicion that this fire may have occurred through an illegitimate, third-party breach of the functionality of the pipeline.
The company stated further that relevant investigations are continuing while further information about the remote and direct causes of the fire will be communicated as soon as these become available. We ask our stakeholders to wait further, detailed briefing in due course.
Nembe Creek Trunk Line is a 97 kilometre, 150,000 barrels of oil per day pipeline constructed by Royal Dutch Shell plc and situated in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The Trunk Line is one of Nigeria’s major oil transportation arteries that evacuate crude from the Niger Delta to the Atlantic coast for export.
The 1.22 diameter pipeline is 97 kilometres long which passes through Cawthorne Channel Field and has 14 pump stations.
Olusola Bello
