Olusola Bello
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its partner, Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) lost $27.09 million to disruption occasioned by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic at one of the nation’s terminals, Abo Terminal.
This is amount is the value of the 400,000 barrels of crude oil that could not be loaded at the terminal when it is based on the current price of crude oil which is $67.73 per a barrel.
The offshore oil facility which is being operated by the Nigerian Agip Exploration Ltd, an Eni subsidiary, and has a production capacity of 44,000 barrels of oil per day (b/d), water injection capacity of 33,000 b/d, gas compression capacity of 48.4 mmscf/d (million standard cubic feet) and storage capacity of 930,000 barrels.
But 20,000 barrels of crude oil were lost every day for 20 days as workers of the company abandoned their jobs because of the virus. This sums up the total lost at the terminal to 400,000 barrels for those periods that the facility was idle.
In a document, it presented to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting for last month, which held between April 20 and 21, under the subheading: “Report of Events that Affected Production in February 2021), the NNPC stated that the workers abandoned the terminal for 20 days due to the pandemic.
Aside from the 400,000 barrels lost to the virus, 17 of the country’s terminals had one issue or the other leading to shut-ins that cost Nigeria 4.105 million barrels of crude oil in February.
According to Thisday ,in Forcados, the injection into the facility was curtailed due to repairs at Otegbele, Eresigbere and Chanomi between February 2 and 7, wherein 360,000 barrels of oil were lost.
Also, receipts were curtailed at the same terminal due to leaks observed along with the system and subsequent repairs of the Trans Forcados pipeline in which another 360,000 barrels were shut in between February 18 and 23.
Also, at the Akpo facility, there was a production confinement of 60,000 barrels on the 25th of the same month, while at the Bonga oil facility, power outage resulted in a shutdown on February 1 to 8, leading to a loss of one million barrels during the period.
The Amenam terminal was shut down from 25 to 28 of February, to rev up compliance with the production quota imposed on members by the Organisation of the Exporting Countries (OPEC), and 56,000 barrels were lost cumulatively.
The NNPC document indicated that Erha experienced deferred production and later complete shutdown for the repair of an epoxy (coated) pipe between February 26 and 28, causing a loss of 210, 000 barrels.
Escravos suffered a 252,000 barrels’ loss as a result of routine maintenance shutdown, while Addax Petroleum’s production into Brass and Seplat’s 28,000 barrels, as well as 15,000 barrels, were curtailed due to a strike embarked upon by workers of the NAOC in Ebocha and what the corporation described as a third party interference, respectively.
According to the NNPC, Egina came second in the month’s losses with a princely 600,000 barrels between February 1 and 6 due to pigging (use of pipeline maintenance gauges) activities, while Aiteo closed some wells due to flowline leak, resulting in the loss of 560,000 barrels of the commodity.
In Bonny, Ohaji was shut down due to a leak on Egbema/Asa trunkline between February 20th and 22nd of the same month and 30,000 barrels were lost to the development.
