‘Port Harcourt refinery operated for 3 months in 2013 due to pipeline vandalism’

The operation of the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited (PHRC), which is made up of two of the nation’s refineries, was restricted to about three months last year as a result of pipeline vandalism, according to the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The combined crude processing capacity of the Port Harcourt Refinery is 210,000 barrels per stream per day (bpsd). The old refinery has a nameplate capacity of 60,000bpsd while the new refinery has an installed capacity of 150,000bpsd.

According to Haruna Momoh, managing director, PPMC, who spoke at the 2014 National Association vandalism’of Energy Correspondents’ (NAEC) conference in Lagos on Thursday, the Escravos-Warri Refining Petrochemical Company (WRPC) and Bonny-PHRC pipelines are out due

to disruption of crude oil supply to the refineries.

He noted that the lingering disruption of pipelines in the country has resulted in the use of marine vessels for crude oil deliveries to the refineries. “PHRC operated for only 82 days in 2013 due to pipeline vandalism,” he said.

Diezani Alison-Madueke, minister of petroleum resources, had at a conference in Lagos early this month said that the option of transporting crude oil to the nation’s refineries by marine vessels, which was adopted to mitigate the menace of oil-theft related vandalism, has increased the operational cost of refining by an additional sum of $7.52 per barrel.

The Federal Government needs to develop a national plan for critical infrastructure and key resources protection similar to the United States’ National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), said Momoh, who was represented by Frank Amego, executive director, commercial, PPMC.

“The USA government, recognising the criticality of pipelines to national security, treats them as national strategic assets. The Federal Government should likewise declare the pipelines as strategic national assets and set up a special force to protect them.”

Pipeline breaks and ruptures from 2011 to 2013 were 4,468, 3708 and 3,571, respectively, according to data from PPMC.

Noting that under the Nigerian legal system, the police are only empowered to commence critical proceedings at the Magistrate courts after arrest of suspects as prosecution can only happen at the Federal High Court, he said this has created difficult situation for prosecution to proceed diligently.

“There is need to amend the laws to allow speedy prosecution of suspects,” he said.

Momoh noted that the Oil Pipelines Act, Cap 338 of 1990 (and the Oil Pipelines Regulations which are made pursuant to the Act) does not establish sanctions for the violation of pipelines or disruption of the distribution of crude oil or refined petroleum products.

He, however, said that the Miscellaneous Offences Act (1984) Section 1(7) provides that any person who willfully or maliciously breaks, damages, disconnects, tampers with, obstructs, destroys pipelines or interferes with the free flow of crude oil or refined product through pipelines, shall be guilty of an offence and liable upon conviction to imprisonment for life, adding that the offences under the Act can only be prosecuted at the Federal High Court

BusinessDay