Power failure, COVID-19 outbreak and production shut-in at various crude oil terminals prevented the production of 3.31 million barrels of oil valued at about N88.76bn in one month.

Updates on key setbacks that affected oil production in the month of March 2021, as posted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on its website on Monday, showed that power failure alone stalled the production of one million barrels of oil.

Further analysis of the report showed that a total of 500 vandalised pipeline points were recorded between March 2020 and March 2021.

On crude oil losses, figures from the oil firm indicated that the Bonga Terminal lost the highest volume of crude oil (one million barrels), followed by the Forcados Terminal (720,000 barrels).

The Abo, Egina and Bonny terminals also recorded crude oil losses, as they could not produce 400,000 barrels, 600,000 barrels and 590,000 barrels respectively.

Industry figures on the price of Brent, the crude against which Nigeria’s oil is priced, showed that the average cost of the commodity in March this year was $65.41 per barrel.

Therefore, for the 3,310,000 barrels of crude oil that was not produced during the review month, Nigeria lost about $216.51m (N88.768bn at the official N410/$ exchange rate).

Explaining the setbacks that affected crude oil production in the latest report, the corporation stated that at the Forcados Terminal, injection into the facility was curtailed due to repairs at Oteghele, Eresiggbere and Chanomi/Odid.

It added that receipts were curtailed at Forcados due to leaks observed along the Trans Forcados Pipeline and subsequent repairs of the TFP.

“The cumulative loss for the period was 720,000 bbls (barrels),” the oil firm stated.

At the Abo Terminal, it said production shut down occurred due to COVID-19 outbreak at the terminal, as this amounted to a cumulative loss of 400,000 barrels.

On what happened at the Bonga Terminal, the corporation said, “Power outage resulted in a shutdown on January 1. This gave an aggregate loss of 1,000,000 barrels.”

For the Egina Terminal, it stated that there was production shut-in due to pigging activities, resulting in a cumulative loss of production within the period of 600,000 barrels.

At the Bonny Terminal, NNPC said, “Aiteo closed in some wells due to flow line leak and Ohaji was shut down due to leak on Egbema/Assa trunk line. These amounted to aggregate loss of 590,000 barrels.”

On products theft and pipeline security, it stated that these issues had continued to destroy value and put NNPC at disadvantaged competitive position.

“A total of 500 vandalised points have been recorded between March 2020 to March 2021,” the corporation stated.

NNPC’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Kennie Obateru, said the oil firm was in collaboration with the local communities and other stakeholders on how to address the menace.

He said the corporation and its partners had continuously strived to reduce and eventually eliminate pipeline vandalism and other acts that impact negatively on production.