The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), lost 150,000 barrels of crude yesterday from an attack on its Trans Niger Pipeline in Ogoniland, the Group Managing Director. Dr. Maikanti Baru, has said.
Baru said the attack will affect the Corporation’s plan to sustain its last week’s record of 2.2million barrels production per day.
On the possibility of sustaining the feat, he said: “Unfortunately, we have not been able to sustain it because of challenges. As I am talking to you this morning, the Trans Niger pipeline has been breached in Ogoniland and that is 150,000 barrels of oil has been locked up daily. That has been fairly an issue in that area and we hope we can continue at that level.”
Baru spoke to reporters after the opening ceremony of the “Extra-ordinary session of the Council of Ministers of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO) in Abuja.
In his opening remarks, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo urged African oil producing countries to track the funding of terrorists with oil funds.
He lamented that there was a global threat to peace from the funding of terrorist groups and other sources of violence and conflicts that have become a threat to the security and safety of member states.
Urging member-states to build up a data base that will track every molecule of oil produced in the region, he said the measure will bring about accountability, transparency and global cooperation.
He said: “Permit me to mention a matter of immediate concern. Around the world today, we are increasingly seeing crude oil, often of untraceable origins, funding the activities of terrorists groups and other purveyors of violence and conflicts.
“Many of these groups constitute a threat or a potential threat to the safety and security to our member-states. APPO reforms, therefore, needs to build the capacity to maintain a reliable statistical database and to deploy technology to track every molecule of crude oil extracted from our territories.
“This is an important step, not only for global security, but also for fiscal transparency, accountability and of course, the required levels of international collaboration and cooperation that an organisation like APPO is well-placed to muster.”
He said the session is holding when the continent and the rest of the world are witnessing volatility in the petroleum market, and by implications, in their local economies.
According to him, the centrality of the hydrocarbon industry to the economies of the continent is self-evident, it is reflected in the revenue inflows that accounts for a significant percentage of their budget.
This, Osinbajo said, has become one, if not the primary sub-structure upon which economic planning is based and on which economic development and growth are generated.
