Nigeria’s oil production woes continues
Nigeria could be producing an obscene amounts of oil and making serious money in the International markets to see it through the downturn in the industry.
However, in Nigeria oil production levels is affected by pirates, militants, Boko Haram and fantastically corruption government, headlines about Nigerian oil typically include broken down infrastructure, violence, devastated eco system in Niger Delta, protests etc.
50 years on and they are still faced with the same problems. The greed and corruption associated within the oil industry in Africa as a whole has rapidly overtaken any gains they might have made in the last 50 years.
Standard of living is still very low, level of illiteracy high, and there is a general lack of everything. The whole continent seems to be now so plagued by problems that the discovery of black gold has turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing.
These countries it seems have been sentenced perpetually to stupidity and backwardness.
Militant group, Niger Delta Avengers, claim they blew up an ExxonMobile pipeline in Akwa Ibom state yesterday July 11th. The statement they shared on their website says
“At about 7:30pm yesterday July 11th, the Niger Delta Avengers blow up ExxonMobile Qua Iboe 48″ crude oil export pipeline. When will these International Oil companies (IOC) learn to listen. We (Niger Delta Avengers) said no export”.
Shell has shut operations at Niger Trans line as Avengers blew up a pipeline. The pipeline has a capacity of 180,000 barrels per day.
We hope the governments place a great deal more emphasis on dealing/negotiating with these militants and address the corruption issues before Nigeria is mentioned in the same breath as South Sudan. The trickle down effects is now evident as some Nigerian banking sector analysts have expressed concern over banks’ exposure to the upstream oil and gas sector.
A report stated that of the top five banks’ $4,882 million exposure to the upstream oil and gas sector, at least 15 per cent is exposed to the Trans Forcados pipeline (TFP). The pipeline has closed for four months due to attacks by the Niger Delta Avengers.
The TFP links a number of oil fields and oil mining leases (OML) in the western Niger Delta with the Forcados terminal on the coast. Many of these OMLs were once owned by Shell Nigeria but were sold to indigenous Nigerian upstream companies, in many cases financed by Nigerian banks.
Angola and Ghana have already managed to profitably utilise revenues generated from oil production to better the lives of there people and invest in infrastructure and social services.
The Management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC on Friday cautioned members of the public from embarking on any form of panic purchase of petroleum products in anticipation of product scarcity due to the ongoing strike action by members of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN.
The NNPC in a release stated that while the Corporation has commenced talks with the leadership of the industry Unions to address their grievances, the Corporation has in stock enough products to satisfy local consumption requirements for the next 45 days noting that there is no need for motorists and other users of petroleum products to embark on frenzied wholesale purchase of fuel in anticipation of scarcity.
In the Middle East, Iran wants to double oil exports. Iranian officials reportedly said that they are targeting a doubling of their oil exports from 2 to 4 million barrels per day. Iran is already producing 3.8 million barrels per day, but exports 2 mb/d.
In order to ramp up oil production enough to generate 4 mb/d of exports. This is what the Nigerian Government should be striving to accomplish. They need to invest heavily in the Niger Delta region as a matter of urgency and provide gainful employment for the indigines in the region. Its about the economy as a whole.
Oil and Gas News Undiluted !!! “The squeaky wheel gets the oil”.
SOURCE: oglinks.news
