The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has deplored the recent increase in attacks on crude oil and gas pipelines, stressing that the Escravos-Lagos gas pipeline was vandalised with four breaks over the weekend.
David Ige, the group executive director, gas and power of the corporation, who revealed this in a television interview in Abuja, stated that the sudden increase in the activities of saboteurs around the Trans-Forcados pipeline and the Escravos-Lagos pipeline in the last six weeks has robbed the nation of several billions of naira to the detriment of the national economy.
He disclosed that NNPC loses between 50,000 and 60,000 barrels of crude oil and condensate on a daily basis to pipeline breaks and that there appears to be a syndicate behind the economic sabotage.
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Ige stated that most of the power plants including the Calabar Power Plant, Alaoji Power Plant, Power Plant, and Olorunsogo Power Plant, among others, have been connected to gas and that all the efforts of the Federal Government to construct unprecedented massive gas pipeline infrastructure are being sabotaged by vandals.
He lamented that between January and February 2015 alone, the Trans-Forcados crude pipeline was attacked and vandalised four times, adding that none of the corporation’s gas pipelines have been able to run two straight days without been brought down.
The NNPC boss said the corporation was exploring a number of options on how to tackle the pipeline vandalism menace ranging from an aggressive community engagement to installation of technological gadgets to stave off the vandals.
He noted that each time a gas pipeline was brought down by the vandals, power supply across the country drops which adversely affects economic activities across the length and breadth of the nation.
