The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation said on Sunday that it suffered a 94 per cent increase in willful hacking and destruction of its pipeline infrastructure across the country in November 2019.

The NNPC said in a statement that its monthly financial and operations report for November showed that 68 pipeline points were vandalised, compared to 35 points that were breached in October.

It said out of the vandalised points, 15 failed to be welded while only two pipeline points were ruptured.

The corporation said Mosimi-Ibadan axis accounted for 31 per cent of the breaks, Atlas Cove-Mosimi network witnessed 19 per cent, while Ibadan-Ilorin and other routes accounted for 15 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.

It said the daily average natural gas supply to gas-powered plants in November increased by 16.53 per cent to 645 million standard cubic feet per day, equivalent to power generation of 2,178 megawatts, compared to 553mmscfd in October (2,050MW).

The corporation said national gas production in November stood at 228.65 billion cubic feet, translating to an average daily production of 7,621.68mmscfd.

It said out of the total volume of gas supplied in November, 137.02bcf of gas was commercialised, consisting of 35.29bcf and 101.73bcf for the domestic and export markets respectively.

The national oil firm said, “This translates to a total supply of 1,176.40mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 3,391.04mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month, implying that 59.91 per cent of the average daily gas produced was commercialised, while the balance of 40.09 per cent was re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared.

“Gas flare rate was 8.29 per cent for the month under review, i.e. 632.37mmscfd, compared with an average gas flare rate of 8.80 per cent, i.e. 692.97mmscfd for the period November 2018 to November 2019.”