The Nigerian Gas Company, NGC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, says Nigeria has lost about N8.04 billion to gas pipeline vandalism since January. Dafe Sejebor, managing director of the NGC, disclosed this at a press briefing in Warri, Delta State. According to him, the country has witnessed an unprecedented increase in the spate of gas pipeline vandalism since the beginning of this year. Sejebor added that three major attacks had been unleashed on its pipeline network, mainly in the Niger Delta region within the last two months.

Represented by Joseph Olisa, executive director of Services, NGC, he explained that the company is forced to shut down the pipeline whenever the pipelines are sabotaged and this leads to the deferment of a minimum of 200 million Standard Cubic Feet, SCF, of gas per day. He put the average price of gas at $3 per unit of 1,000 scf, and explained further that it takes an average of two weeks to repair the damage, and an average of one week to locate the damaged spot and mobilise personnel, equipment and materials to site.

The NGC boss also noted that the minimum cost for the repair of a damaged pipeline in the Niger Delta region is about N160 million. To this end, at an average price of $3 per 1,000SCF, multiplied by 200 million SCF product loss plus repairs, Nigeria may have lost about N8.01 billion between January and now. This is   put at 1,500 megawatts, as a number of power plants will be deprived of gas to generate electricity.

Sejebor lamented the negative impact of the recent increase in the spate of vandalism on the operations of the company and the country’s economy and maintained that it is a wilful damage and not as a result of the company’s inability to maintain Nigerian pipelines. He further stated that the NGC is already working together with all its key stakeholders including its contractors, security agencies and leaders of communities in its areas of operations, on ways to ensure the safety of the pipelines.