Statistics have shown that Nigeria lost N91bn worth of oil to various technical issues in just one month.
Data sourced from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s latest Monthly Financial and Operations Report (April 2021) showed that the revenue was lost due to the inability to produce approximately 3.5 million barrels of oil in April.
Total oil lost for the month comes to 3.5 billion barrels. Brent International was sold for $62.95 per barrel last April. Going by a price of $62.95 per barrel and volume of 3.5 million barrels, total lost revenue in the month under review was put at approximately $220m or N91.435bn.
According to the report, the key setback that affected production in the month under review was first from the Forcados terminal.
From Forcados, the terminal injection was curtailed due to Seplat shutdown for planned TFP repairs. There was also the Pan Ocean OML 147 shut-in to avoid tank top, including an industrial action which led to production shut-in.
Also, some stations were shut down on March 11, 2021, for Trans Ramos Pipeline Repairs. The cumulative loss for the period was put at 1,456,500 bbls.
At The Yoho and Ima terminals, production was shut down due to maintenance. This amounted to a 210,000bbls and 31,000bbls loss respectively.
At Bonga terminal, a power outage resulted in a shutdown on January 30, 2021. This gave an aggregate loss of 1,000,000 bbls.
There was a shutdown at Akpo and Erha due to the detection of gas at the starboard riser and repairs of the epoxy pipe. Also, Jisike was shut down due to industrial action by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN. The cumulative loss of production within the period was put at 35,000bbls, 560,000bbls, and 13,500bbls.
Egina terminals were shut down due to power failure, while Pennington terminal was shut down for vessel swap and SPM B chain adjustment. These amounted to an aggregate loss of 65,000bbls and 125,000bbls respectively.
The country’s oil output has hovered around 1.2 million barrels in the last two years despite an OPEC quota of 1.772 million barrels per day.
Apart from technical hiccups, issues such as vandalism, oil theft, and low investments have also been identified as reasons for crude oil loss in Nigeria.
