Fuel scarcity: NNPC completes System 2B pipeline repair

November 21, 2012 by Stanley Opara  

 

Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke and Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mr. Andrew Yakubu
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Hopes of improvement in fuel supply in the South-West area have been raised following the completion of repair works on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s System 2B pipeline, which was vandalised in August at Arepo, Ogun State.

The pipeline, which pumps petroleum products from offshore Atlas Cove depot to Mosinmi, Ibadan, Ilorin and Ore depots, is currently undergoing a test-run.

Top officials in the downstream sub-sector of the petroleum industry, disclosed this to our correspondent in confidence on Monday.

Our correspondent gathered that currently, the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, a subsidiary of the NNPC, was currently pumping water through the pipeline, as a form of test run of the facility.

Market sources that disclosed this to our correspondent, were, however, worried that the PPMC had been testing the facility for a while with no sign of pumping petrol through the channel, considering the current scarcity of the product in the country.

One of the sources said, “The System 2B has been fixed and it is being tested as we speak. The PPMC has been pumping water through it for some time now.”

Our correspondent was unable to confirm this development from the NNPC, as the corporation did not respond to enquiries.

The pipeline was shut after it exploded in August following attacks by vandals, who were siphoning products from it.

The shutdown had resulted in petrol distribution problems in states like Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Edo, Ilorin and environs.

With the closure, trucks that hitherto loaded at Mosinmi in Shagamu, Ogun State, had to come to depots at Apapa, Lagos to load. This had caused delays and other logistic challenges for the marketers.

This had mounted pressure on supplies for the Lagos area and its environs.

The NNPC management had in September confirmed the killing of three of its engineers and technicians deployed to effect repairs on the vandalised pipeline, after suspected oil pipeline vandals opened fire on them.

The Acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Fidel Pepple, had said aside the three members of the repair team who were killed, others also sustained injuries from gunshots fired by the vandals.

The corporation had dispatched a team of pipeline engineers and technologists to the ruptured pipeline site after it successfully put out the flames by ensuring a complete cut-off of product supply to the pipeline from Atlas Cove.

The PPMC team was on the verge of gaining access to the damaged point to commence proper assessment of the scope of work when they were ensnared in an ambush.

SOURCE: The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper 21 November 2012.