…Want Pipeline Contract Reviewed
By Daniel Abia
P/Harcourt
The Community Development Committees of Niger Delta Oil and Gas Producing Areas (CDC) has set an ambitious target of five million barrels of crude oil per day for the new management team of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL)
CDC said the change in the management of the corporation was long overdue, saying that Nigerians were losing hope, over its inability to effect a fair pricing policy after the removal of petrol subsidy by resorting to prayers, to solve the challenges.
Joseph Ambakederimo, Chairman BoT. of the CDC in a statement on Tuesday in Port Harcourt said the issue of how quickly can the cost of production of a barrel of crude oil be brought to an acceptable level will compete favourably with other oil-producing countries was of the essence.
“We have as low a production cost of between ten to twelve dollars per barrel of crude oil in some African countries compared to our high cost of production of about forty dollars in Nigeria, this certainly cannot be attractive to investors as it places Nigeria at a disadvantaged position. Therefore the cost of production must be brought down to attract what would be referred to as “New Money” (investment) into the sector”.
Ambakederimo said that anything less than five Million barrels per day of crude oil production in Nigeria today does not make economic sense because it will not wedge the ever increasing expenditure profile of the government. He said that large volume production will bring in more foreign exchange, more FX inflow in to the coffers of the Central Bank will bring down the exchange rate of the dollar and more resources for the development of critical infrastructure at all levels of government.
He called on the federal government to invoke the Executive Order signed by President Bola Tinubu to stimulate and quicken the completion process of upcoming Deepwater tenders that will in turn increase the barrels.
The BoT chairman enjoined the new management team to take a critical look at what the issues with the refineries that can’t function optimally. “We want to see the NNPCL four major refineries working optimally including others being encouraged to function optimally by providing the needed feedstock to fire them for the good of the country”.
He called on the team to review the pipeline surveillance contract, adding the continuous payment of N400Billion yearly to Non- state actors who have little or no technological know-how and capacity to undertake such a complex work in a volatile region when many pipeline breaches still occur and are becoming rampant across the region, is unacceptable.
“With benefit of hindsight the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas Company (NLNG) are having issues to contend with regarding supply of gas to its customers. The company keeps having shortfall of gas due largely to pipeline breaches as alluded by the company’s Managing Director, Dr. Philip Mshelbila.
“The country is losing an appreciable amount of revenue that runs into millions of dollars that should have accrued to the Federal government by ways of dividends. We have to look the way of technology in the area of Artificial Intelligence applications, this application is abound everywhere and ready to be deployed.
“The Bayo Ojulari team is therefore urged to stop the pipeline surveillance contracts in whole or review the pipeline surveillance contract either by ways of expanding the scope to bring in all of the principle actors who have felt left out of the patronage by the NNPCL.
“Many of the principal actors are the operators of the unlicensed refineries and are partly responsible for these pipeline breaches to steal crude oil. The Bayo Ojulari team is advised to face the idea of security to NNPCL critical assets as one of their priorities and accommodate more or expanded stakeholders in the process”, he said.
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