#Nigeria Loses N1.3bn Daily To Attacks On #Oil Facilities By #Avengers

With the price of crude oil at about $48 per barrel, there are strong indications that Nigeria is losing about 140,000 barrels – an estimated $6.72 million (N1.3 billion) – of the product on daily basis due to attacks by militants on oil facilities.

Two oil firms operating in Nigeria, Eno and Aiteo have complained that they are losing about 140,000 barrels of crude daily at their oilfields in Bayelsa state, due to recent attacks on their facilities by the militants of the Niger Delta Avengers.

According to Eni, an Italian energy firm and parent company of Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), production was cut by 65,000 barrels per day following Friday’s attack on its pipeline in Bayelsa state.

A spokesperson for Eni confirmed the development to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday.


The spokesperson said: “The total deferred production due to the attack is 65,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily.

“I can confirm that. There is no further impact on production, since all production from the swamp area has already been stopped days ago.”

In the same vein, Shola Omole, the spokesman for Aiteo, operator of the Nembe Creek Trunk Line which came under attack by Niger Delta Avengers on May 28, said the line which conveyed crude to Bonny export terminal had been shut.

According to Omole, about 75,000 barrels daily production was deferred as the line remained shut.

It would be recalled on Thursday, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Ibe Kachikwu, said that Nigeria was producing 1.6 million barrels per day which excludes further production outages due to attack on Agip, Chevron and Shell.