Pan Ocean Oil Corporation Nigeria Ltd an oil-exploration and production company has revealed plans to commission to its new underground pipeline.
The new 150,000bpd pipeline is buried beyond the reach of oil- vandals who steal an estimated 100,000 of crude a day.
The new pipeline which costs $500 million to build will connect the company’s Amukpe oil field to the Escravos oil-export terminal on the Atlantic coast.
According to Pan Ocean, the pipeline was designed to minimise vandalism and mitigate the loss of revenue to the Nigerian government and oil and gas companies operating in the northern fringe of the Niger Delta, describing it as the longest of its kind in Africa.
Felix Amieyeofori, Pan Ocean’s executive consultant said the company employed a horizontal-drilling technology to bury 20-inch thick pipes 40 meters to 45 meters below the surface.
“Such a pipeline would be extremely difficult to sabotage, he said.
The Amukpe-Escravos line provides an alternative route to companies operating in the western delta currently using the Nembe Creek and the Trans Forcados pipelines that suffer frequent closures due to sabotage.
They include Seplat Petroleum Development Co., Sahara Energy Group and Nigeria Petroleum Development Co., the exploration unit of the state oil company.
“We have a lot of companies queued for this line, by the numbers we see, we are going to run over capacity,” said Amieyeofori.
Pan Ocean, which currently produces about 30,000 barrels of oil daily, saw its plan to reach 70,000 barrels in five years set back by the government’s revocation of one of its oil-mining leases last week. The company is in discussions with the government to resolve the issues that led to the revocation, which won’t affect the planned start of the new pipeline, Amieyeofori said.
The new Amukpe-Escravos Pipeline Project is one of the three key projects recently concluded by the oil-giant. Others are the Ovade-Ogharefe Gas Processing Plant Phases I and II and OML 147 Early Production Facility at Owa-Alidinma.
Ovade-Ogharefe Gas Processing Plant would supply lean gas to the NIPP power plant located at Ihovbor, Edo State, and liquefied petroleum gas to households across Nigeria, with a processing capacity of 200 million standard cubic feet per day and 29 storage tanks. The OML 147 Early Production Facility is expected to process 11,000 barrels of crude oil and 90 million standard cubic feet of gas daily when fully operational.
OLUFIKAYO OWOEYE
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