The Chairman of Shell Companies in Nigeria, Osagie Okunbor, revealed on Tuesday that Shell discovered and removed 460 illegal connections on its Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) before restoring the facility, which was shut down for a year due to crude oil theft.
The TNP is used by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria to transport crude from oil fields in Rivers and parts of Bayelsa to the Bonny Crude Oil Export Terminal, while other IOCs have lamented the significant impact of oil theft on their operations.
According to Okunbor, the TNP shutdown resulted in the loss of gas supply to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited for a year.
At the 6th Nigeria International Energy Summit, several executives of international and indigenous oil and gas companies, including Okunbor and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, spoke about the challenges in the oil sector.
Okunbor stated that the security of oil infrastructure should be a priority, adding that Nigeria has numerous frameworks and documents on how to address the challenges, such as the Decade of Gas document, but implementation remains an issue.
Osinbajo announced the Federal Government’s plan to generate 5,300 megawatts of electricity from solar and produce six billion litres of biofuel annually.
He pointed out that Nigeria and other African countries have large natural resources and are among the lowest emitters of carbon, making them ideal for developing a green future.
Osinbajo stated that Nigeria’s energy transition plan involves ramping up solar cells and transitioning at least two million Nigerian households annually to cleaner cooking fuels, such as LPG and electricity.
The Managing Director of Nigeria LNG Limited, Dr Philip Mshelbila, also stated that 40% of globally renowned gas firms’ capacity had been lying fallow due to theft.
He added that the lack of power to execute the recommendations and policies in various documents and laws of the oil sector had remained a challenge to the industry.
