Compounding budget deficit worries, Nigeria loses 150,000bpd to pipeline attack

Suspected militants on Monday vandalised the Trans-Niger pipeline in Ogoniland in Rivers State of the Niger Delta, reducing the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)’s crude oil production by 150,000 barrels per day.

This revelation was made by the Group Managing Director (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, who told journalists that the country has not been able to sustain the recent gains recorded in crude oil production as a result of the destruction of pipelines in the region.

He noted that the corporation had not been able to sustain the 2.2 million bpd crude production that it announced, saying, “Unfortunately, we have not been able to sustain it because we have challenges.

“As I am talking to you, this morning (Monday), the Trans-Niger pipeline has been breached in Ogoniland, and that is 150,000 barrels of oil that have been knocked off. That has been fairly an issue with that area. We hope we can continue our dialogue and this will return to what it should be.”

Read also: Budget deficit concerns as OPEC limits Nigeria’s daily oil output

The NNPC boss had told stakeholders in Abuja last week that the country’s crude production was 2.2 million barrels per day.

Baru, who spoke through the corporation’s Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power, Mr. Saidu Mohammed, had announced that the country’s crude production was gaining momentum.

“We are doing about 2.2 million bpd today, but of course, the intention is to build on that, sustain production and grow it up to three million barrels per day in the next few years,” the GMD had said.

This development coincides with OPEC’s limiting of Nigeria’s oil output per day to 1.8 million, 400,000 barrels short of the budget benchmark of 2.2 million barrels per day. This will definitely deal a serious blow to the funding of the 2017 budget whose deficit financing is already a major concern for the country’s policymakers.

 

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