FG To Handover Pipeline Assets To Private Investors

The Federal Government (FG), has set up a framework for the concession of petroleum product pipeline assets to private investors. This, it believes will check the incessant vandalism sabotaging the country’s economy.

BizWatch Nigeria understands that pipeline assets across the country are completely owned by the Federal Government. However, vandalism has since been disrupting the nation’s crude oil output, such that at least $700 million is lost on a monthly basis.

However, to address the vandalism concerns, the Nigerian government is mulling plans to sell all the assets to private investors as part of measures to solve this, with the hope that they would operate the pipelines more effectively.

The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Gabriel Aduda, made this disclosure on the sidelines of the workshop, which had the theme, “Development of Framework for the Concession of Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Assets.”

“There are some challenges. We’ve been talking about vandalism. But if the private sector comes in, perhaps they will be able to safeguard their own pipelines more than the government is doing on its own.

“So we are looking at getting the private sector to be involved,” Aduda, who was represented by the Director, Midstream, FMPR, Felix Okeke, stated.

How much oil is stolen in Nigeria?

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) had claimed to be recording 470,000 bpd of crude oil loses monthly, which amounts to $700 million.

In a statement in which this disclosure was made, Bala Wunti, the Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPMS), according to the corporation, argued that the number of oil barrels stolen daily is very huge, adding that about 270 barrels per day that were supposed to be loaded in Bonny are no longer going to be loaded because of theft.

If you’re producing 30,000 barrels a day, every month, you get 1,940 barrels. So what it means is that you can take it to 270 every four days, calculate it in a month; you will have seven cargos on a million barrels, that’s seven million barrels,” he said.

“When you multiply seven million barrels by $100 that is $700 million lost per month and about 150,000 barrels expected are differed; we are not producing due to security challenges,” the statement quoted him as saying.