By KUNLE KALEJAYE
The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd, SPDC Joint Venture has commenced repair of the Nembe Creek Trunkline, NCTL, after shutting it down on May 2nd because of incessant crude theft activities.

Vice President, Health, Safety and Environment, Shell Sub-Saharan Africa, Mr Tony Attah, said SPDC’s pipeline repair team disconnected two six-inch lines through which thieves were stealing crude from the 97-kilometre line.

“The team will tackle eight other illegal bunkering points as it continues to re-assert the integrity of the facility, which was commissioned in 2010 at a cost of $1.1 billion to replace an older pipeline.

“This is a difficult work requiring careful planning and digging up several sections of the line in swamp and land, investigating illegal bunkering points and deciding whether to clamp them or do sectional replacement,” he said.

“When you add the cost of repairs to the facility downtime and loss of revenue, it becomes clear how crude theft has denied Nigeria of badly-needed revenue,” he added. In December last year, the NCTL was shut down for one month to repair leaks caused by crude thieves. The latest shutdown has led to the declaration of force majeure on the export of Bonny Light.

Attah added, “The Trans Niger Pipeline has also been suffering from crude theft leading to frequent shutdowns for repairs and integrity checks. Clearly, we are concerned by these increasing cases and appeal for concerted efforts to stop the crime for the sake of the environment, the Nigerian state and the communities themselves.”

Recently, the spokesman for the Joint Task Force, JTF, in the Niger Delta region, Lt. Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu, Rivers State, disclosed that the JTF arrested 21 international oil thieves and five Nigerians on board vessels, MT Ani and MT Oso with 650,000 metric tonnes of crude oil.

A few weeks ago, the international media reported that crude oil and refined petroleum products smuggling was on the rise in the Gulf of Guinea especially on the West African coast between Nigeria and Ghana.

However, the Chief Executive of Shell, Peter Voser, had earlier complained about the increase in oil theft in Nigeria, pointing out that over 150,000 barrels of oil was being stolen in the country every day from his company’s facilities.

It has been estimated that on the average about 450,000 barrels of crude oil is stolen from Nigeria every day, the equivalent of about $19.74billion using a conservative spot market average price of $120 per barrel for the nation’s premium crude grade- Bonny Light.