The maintenance team of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has moved to repair the portion of system 2B pipeline that was affected by the Abule Ado explosion on Sunday.
The action of the NNPC team was as a result of the fire which reignited from the pipeline at about 5.10 am on Tuesday, Mele Kyari, managing director of the corporation, said in a tweet Monday.
A combined team of NNPC, Naval personnel, Lagos State officials and Federal fire service effectively controlled the fire and took steps to forestall it reignition, Kyari said.
Residents of the place told BusinessDay on Tuesday that security agents have barricaded the place, barring human and vehicular traffic on the road leading to the scene of the blast.
Kyari said the fire re-ignition on the pipeline started as a result of the residual fires in the neighbourhood.
He sympathised with the people and government of Lagos State on the loss of lives and property and expressed deep appreciation for the timely response and interventions of the men of Fire Services, security agencies, the Red Cross, and other stakeholders.
According to him, the encroachment on the NNPC pipeline right of way (ROW) by gas vendors and construction of houses led to the explosion and aggravated its impact.
He said the NNPC was working with the Lagos State government and security agencies to clear the ROW.
The strategic products pipeline which is known as system 2B serves the entire southwest. It starts from Atlas Cove in Lagos and supplies products to Mosimi, Ejigbo, Ibadan, and Ilorin depots.
The explosion at a gas processing plant on Sunday killed at least 19 people and destroyed about 50 buildings after a fire broke out in Abule Ado, a suburb of Lagos.
NNPC said the explosion was triggered after a truck hit some gas cylinders stacked in a gas processing plant near the corporation’s pipeline in Abule Ado.
The impact of the explosion led to the collapse of nearby houses, damaged NNPC’s pipeline and forced the corporation to halt pumping operations on the Atlas Cove-Mosimi pipeline.
NNPC has assured that the temporary shutdown of the petroleum products pipeline would not affect the normal supply of products to the Lagos and surrounding towns.
