According to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, (Oil) Heineken Lokpobiri, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited does not have sufficient funds to rebuild old pipelines.
Lokpobiri, while speaking about the divestment of international oil companies and the need to ramp up production at the just concluded Energy and Labour Summit 2024 organised by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria in Abuja, emphasised that Nigeria also needs to repair its pipelines, which he said are old, corroded, and expired.
He raised a valid concern when he said if the country can produce more than 1.7 million barrels of crude oil, the problem is how to evacuate it to the terminal.
In his words “Part of our problem is that pipelines that were traditionally transporting our crude were built in the 1960s and the 1970s and the lifespan is since over. We have identified that even when we can produce, evacuation is a big problem.
“The reason why pipeline vandalism is very easy to do is because the pipelines have all expired they completely corroded and so, anybody can just go and tap it and the thing is busted; but there are better technologies which are more expensive, there are better pipelines that other people are using in other countries, but they are not cheap, We also need to change our model.
“Now, the NNPC that is our joint venture partner, do they have the money to be able to replace these pipelines? I think NNPC will speak for themselves whether they have the money to be able to do that, and I don’t think they have,”
However, he called for the public-private partnerships to fix the old pipelines while also acknowledging for the private sector to come into any country to invest, they must have confidence in such a country, stressing that this was lacking in the past 12 years when there was no foreign investment in the nation’s oil company.
