Insecurity threatening crude oil export - Petroleum engineers

Petroleum engineers have said crude oil exports will continue to dwindle until the Federal Government addresses security of pipelines.

Chairman, the Society of Petroleum Engineers Nigerian Council, Felix Obike, said this while briefing journalists on the upcoming 2023 SPE conference to hold in Lagos, starting from Monday through Wednesday.

Although, exploration for more oil was ongoing, he said, many oil firms were no longer transporting their oil for exports.

“The oil is there and we are currently exploring but a lot of companies are not transporting their crude oil for exports due to insecurity challenges disturbing movement of oil,” he said.

The PUNCH had on Thursday, reported how NNPCL said it discovered a total of 162 illegal pipeline connections and illegal refineries in the Niger Delta, mostly in Bayelsa in the past week.

In a documentary by the oil company in a two-minute documentary shared via its social media ‘X’ handle on Wednesday, NNPCL said 93 illegal pipeline connections and 69 illegal refineries were discovered from Aboa and Gbokoda between July 15 and 21, and have been destroyed.

This year’s SPENC’s Nigeria Annual International Conference and Exhibition was themed, ‘Balancing energy accessibility, affordability, and sustainability: Strategic options for Africa’.

The SPE Nigeria Council is the Nigeria arm of the Society of Petroleum Engineers International, a not-for-profit professional organisation with over 119,000 members worldwide.

The vision of SPE is to advance the oil and gas-producing and related energy communities’ ability to meet the world’s energy needs in a safe, secure, and sustainable manner.