NNPC Reclaims Crude Oil Pipelines to Improve Refineries’ Operations

Chineme Okafor in Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it has regained full access to the pipelines that supply crude oil to its three refineries in Kaduna, Warri, and Port Harcourt, thus making it possible for the refineries to produce up to six million litres of petrol and diesel, respectively.

The corporation also plans to adopt a new model for commercialising Nigeria’s gas resources, in which exploration and production (E&P) companies could be allowed to only produce gas but not process it.

Speaking at the recent Sustainability in the Extractive Industry (SITEI) conference in Abuja, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, who was represented by NNPC’s Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power, Mr. Seidu Muhammad, said the three crude oil supply lines have been recovered after years of inactivity owing to vandalism.
The lines the NNPC said it reclaimed include the Escravos-Warri crude pipeline and the Bonny-Port Harcourt refinery crude pipelines.

“Slowly we are reclaiming products pipelines, we have reclaimed all the three main lines that supply crude oil to the refineries, we have reclaimed some of the products lines – Port Harcourt to Aba is an example, as well as the Atlas to Mosimi line, and for the first time in five years we have been able to move products from Kaduna to Kano,” Baru said at the conference.

On the corporation’s planned review of its commercialisation plan for its gas, he said: “The key issue here, what we are trying to do now these days is to say: ‘look we have to look inwards, local capacity has to be built and that is why we have delineated the processing of gas from the E&P companies”.

“Henceforth, processing would be done by Nigerians with willing investors to assist us. In other words, the E&P companies will only produce the gas to the surface and leave it to Nigerian companies to process and possibly transport it to the ultimate users,” Baru added.
He further explained: “That is our drive and the model we are adopting so that we have these seven critical projects come in and fill the gaps within the next few years.”

“Value addition is key to the development of gas, we don’t just want to pipe and export it as LNG, but then we have to add value, and to that end we are encouraging industrial parks to make sure that we convert the gas into usable forms and more value added products either as intermediary or finished products of the petrochemicals,” he said.