The federal government has approved the relocation of pipelines along the Escravos channel to curb delay in supply of petroleum products and reduce under-recovery. In a statement released by Ndu Ughamadu, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) spokesman, said the relocation is to make allowance for the dredging of Warri Escravos Seaport.
The dredging, which will cost N13 billion, will also include the Apapa Ports. During a visit by Hadiza Bala Usman, Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) Managing Director, to NNPC, Maikanti Baru, NNPC Group Managing Director, said the dredging could take as long as a year.
“Because of the sheer number of the pipelines and the criticality of some of the petroleum products they carry, we are looking at the timelines that would span 12 months to relocate some of the pipelines,” the statement quoted Baru to have said.
“In some of the critical areas, we have agreed that because of supply situations, they would do an initial dredging that would give us at least 10 metres, especially in the Escravos areas.
“The test point for the support of the NPA to NNPC was between December 2017 and February this year because it was really a trying period during the fuel scarcity and the NPA supported us patriotically prompting our coming out of the crisis and it actually helped the nation as well.”
Usman said the NPA will work with NNPC to bury the pipelines deeper so the Lagos and Warri ports will have deeper drafts for bigger vessels.
“We want to work with NNPC on relocating and burying those pipelines deeper so that NPA can dredge and have a deeper draft for bigger vessels to come to Warri and Lagos to enhance the supply of petroleum products and other larger vessels coming into the country.”
