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Drop in crude oil production worrisome – NUPENG

By on May 9, 2013

The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers on Wednesday said the drop in crude oil production since the first quarter of the year was worrisome.

It also advised the Federal Government to install monitoring sensors and alarms on oil installations across the country in order to eliminate crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism.

NUPENG, in a document signed by its National President, Mr. Achese Igwe, which was made available to our correspondent, said it was alarming that the daily crude oil production was now fluctuating between 1.86 million barrels and 2.1 million barrels as against the estimated 2.48 million bpd in the first quarter of the year.

It said, “Government has to change tactics and strategies in the fight against crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism. The union wants the Federal Government to introduce new technologies like monitoring sensors and alarm systems that will trigger off whenever any pipeline is being tampered with.

“The union believes that this will go a long way to check crude oil theft from the pipelines and ensure effective surveillance with the help of the host communities where these pipelines traverse.”

It observed that the drop in crude oil production, which was as a result of incessant crude theft and pipeline vandalism, should not get out of hand or else the revenue accruing to the government would also drop drastically.

The Federal Government, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, had stated that the drop in oil production in the last quarter amounted to a loss of about $1.23bn (N191bn).

According to NUPENG, the drop in revenue will negatively affect the transformation agenda of the present administration.

It added that crude oil production drop would also affect Nigeria’s external reserves and further compound the issue of project abandonment.

 

 

 

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