Yearly Shutdown of Oil Production in Nigeria Averages 160 Days

SEATTLE (Oil Monster): The current average number of days oil and gas companies operating from Nigeria’s oil fields in the Niger Delta have to shut down their operations on accounts of various operational challenges has been put at between 80 and 160 days by a former Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr. Osten Olorunsola.

Speaking at a roundtable meeting on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) organised by the Nigeria Natural Resource Charter (NNRC) and Media Initiative on Transparency in Extractive Industries (MITEI) on Tuesday in Abuja, Olorunsola explained that this was unlike what obtained in other oil producing destinations across the world.

Olorunsola, who is a member of the Expert Advisory Panel (EAP) of the NNRC, stated in a presentation he made at the meeting that most oil producing countries record just about 30 and 45 days of production downtime, and produce oil for an upward of about 330 days.

This, he explained, was not the case in Nigeria where he noted that frequent pipeline breakages and uncertainties in security of assets amongst other issues were responsible for the lengthy operational downtime the country currently records.

The former director of the DPR indicated that there was a time the Trans Forcados oil pipeline was down for two years, shutting in production from oil fields. He also stated that in 2018 alone, some trunklines had been shut down for up to 84 days, thus impeding oil production.

On the PIGB, he explained that the bill, which is now reportedly with President Muhammadu Buhari for assent, has in it a philosophy that insists that holders of upstream oil block licences would either drill their oil blocks immediately or drop them for fresh awards.

Courtesy: www.thisdaylive.com