By Adewale Sanyaolu
The number of Pipeline sabotage in the country has increased to 94 downstream pipelines vandalized points in March from 49 in February, representing 92 percent increase, latest statistics from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has shown.
The increase in activities of vandals is contained in the March 2017 edition of the monthly Financial and Operations Report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), released in Abuja at the weekend.
‘‘This represents over 91 per cent increase relative to the previous months despite Federal Government’s and the NNPC’s continuous engagement with the stakeholders. It was however, a noticeable improvement compared to corresponding period of March 2016 which posted 259 cases.
The report also indicated that efforts by the Federal Government to boost electric power generation in the country may soon yield the required dividend following the sustained increase in gas supply for power generation by NNPC.
The Corporation said the average national daily gas production for the period stood at an impressive 226.918 billion cubic feet, bcf, which translates to over 7.319 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, mmscfd.
This was as the daily average national gas supply to gas power plants increased to 689mmscfd or the equivalent to power generation of 3056 mw.
The March 2017 figure is an improvement on the previous month’s record which stood at 582 mmscfd. The supply is also over 29 per cent higher than the corresponding supply record for March 2016.
In the downstream sector, NNPC said it has in stock, a robust inland supply of over 1.2 billion litres of petrol sufficient for more than 34 days forward consumption.
On Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), and Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK), NNPC said it continued to import to supplement AGO local refining with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) releasING foreign exchange to marketers to import AGO and ATK.
The report noted that the inaugurated 497.2 Km System 2B petroleum pipeline network which was achieved within the period under review has helped the NNPC to sustain the gale of uninterrupted supply and distribution of products throughout the country.