VENTURES AFRICA – Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) has revealed that in 2013, Nigeria lost 63.51 million barrels of crude oil – a rate of 174,000 barrels per day, to oil theft and other associated incident.
Speaking at an interaction with newsmen in Lagos, Nigeria, on Wednesday, the MD of Shell, Mutiu Sumonu said that the loss also included the shut down of facilities in that period and as a result, the country was deprived of N822.84 billion ($5 billion) oil revenue.
In 2012, the company recorded 137 oil spills. But in 2013, that figure went up to 157. During the period, Sumonu, said that an average of 32,000 barrels of oil were lost daily in SPDC’s operations through third party activities. He also said that the incidents of oil theft and other negative issues in the oil production process forced down the volume of the company’s daily oil output to 693,000 barrels.
Judging by the increase in the record of oil spills, it was evident that even with the working together of Shell and the Federal Government to evolve ways to effectively de-motivate oil theft, many results had not been yielded.
Sumonu advised that committees should be inaugurated to help search for solutions to oil theft as the government and the companies involved could not win the war alone.
The people of Ogoni land, where some of the oil spills occur, have received sensitization drive on the dangers of oil spills in its areas of operations. The need for the people of Ogoni to support the campaign was also stressed.
Sumonu said “We don’t want to wipe out Ogoni history; we want to be part of the restoration of Ogoni environment”. He stated that Shell was committed to paying its share of the 1billion dollars (about N164 billion) recommended by the United Nations Environment Programme for the development of the environment in Ogoni land.
Source: Ventures Africa