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Over 80% of Nigeria's 5120km oil pipelines vandalised [Pan African News Agency](Pan African News Agency Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The Managing Director of Nigeria's Pipelines and Products Marketing Company Limited, PPMC, Mr. Haruna Momoh, has said that 80 percent of the country's 5,120km pipeline network for petroleum product distribution have been vandalised. According to Nigeria's Vanguard newspaper report on Thursday, Momoh said at the Oil Trading and Logistics 2014, African Downstream Expo in Lagos that Nigeria was facing difficulties in distributing products through existing pipelines due to pipeline vandalism and rupture due to aging of the pipes. He said that the country was also faced with challenges of insecurity of pipelines to transport crude to existing refineries because of pipeline vandals. He disclosed that Nigerian refineries were currently producing about 5.10 million litres of petrol daily and that the production of the refineries contrasted with the average local consumption of 40 million litres per day. He listed limited number of trucks for product haulage as well as bad road network as some the challenges hampering petroleum products distribution in Nigeria. Momoh also said that most marketers use the same truck to convey products that are intolerable such as petrol and kerosene. In order to address the challenges of products supply in the country, Momoh said that 3 million metric tonnes per annum of product supply; 10,000 to 25,000 metric tonnes capacity vessels and additional jetties; over 1,000 additional trucks with a 20 metric tonnes carrying capacity and 500 Liquefied Petroleum Gas filling plants among others were required. He disclosed that investment opportunities in the downstream segment of the oil sector included construction/expansion of coastal storage facilities, provision of floating storage, dredging of the jetties to enhance draft and construction of more jetties. He said that the Nigerian government was exploring the use of Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) and use of modern technologies in pipeline surveillance and pigging and also the replacement of the existing pipeline network. (c) 2014 PANAPRESS. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |