We spend N60bn to repair pipelines annually — FG

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the government spends N60bn annually to repair vandalized pipelines.

Speaking on Monday in Abuja at a town hall meeting on protecting oil and gas infrastructure, he said Nigeria lost an average of 200,000 barrels per day to pipelines’ destruction.

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He said statistics had shown that between January 2019 and September 2020, 1,161 pipeline points were vandalized across the nation.

Also speaking, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, said the destruction of pipelines in the Niger Delta had made a lot of oil investors leave the region to other countries for their oil business investments.

Akpabio said perpetrators should be punished and tried openly to serve as a deterrent to others.

The Minister of Environment, Mohammed Mahmood Abubakar, said Nigeria lost 43 per cent of its revenues to oil theft, calling for the prosecution of all pipeline vandals.

Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, said from January to May 2021, the NNPC pipeline segments had suffered 203 breaks with system 2B having 80 pipeline breaks and system 2E, 114 breaks.

He said all these had all led to a total cumulative loss of 39 million litres which amounted to N5.973bn.