The Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), the gas transportation arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said that an average of 200 million standard cubic feet (mscf) of natural gas production and supply was lost each time its Escravos-Lagos Pipeline System (ELPS) was sabotaged at any of its points. Going by the reviewed pricing regime of $2.80 per million standard cubic feet (mscf) for natural gas to Nigeria’s electricity industry, gas suppliers in the country may be losing an average of N112,000,000 ($560,000) daily revenue on deferment of gas production and supplies to power plants due to pipeline breaks.
NGC stated this on Friday in Warri, shortly after inspecting a recent break at the Inikorogha community axis of its ELPS where vandals blew up a section of the line early Monday morning, that between January and March, it had recorded three breaks on the same line.
According to the NGC, on each occasion, a minimum of 200mscf of gas supply to power plants was lost, resulting to a loss of 1500 megawatts (MW) of electricity generation by generation companies.
By calculation, it will take NGC a minimum of two weeks to repair the recent break at Inikorogha, which could lead to loss of revenue in excess of N2 billion as the line could be down for three weeks. The repair could also cost about N150 million.
Briefing reporters after the pipeline inspection at Inikorogha, the Executive Director Services of NGC, Joseph Olisa stated that the frequency of breaks on the ELPS had prompted stakeholders to initiate severe actions against the development.
“We are hurting and pained by the recent level of vandalism done to the pipeline, it has in several ways affected us negatively in trying to achieve our set objectives.
“I must also tell you that we have had several engagements with the stakeholders and communities and about a week ago, we had meetings where we brought in all the communities in Delta State and we had a fruitful meeting on this,” Olisa said.
He further noted that: “We are also engaging specific communities, we had another meeting with the leaders and youth from Gbaramatu kingdom and from the commitment we got from them we will have a better relationship going forward.”