Crude theft costs Shell loss of over 5000bpd in 2016
The Country Chair, Shell Companies of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC), Osagie Okunbor, has revealed how crude oil theft on the Company’s pipeline network resulted in a loss of about 5,660 barrels per day in 2016.
According to Okunbor who made this known during the launch of Shell Nigeria Briefing Notes for 2017 on recently, the over 5000 bpd of crude oil, is less than the 25,000bpd in 2015.
Speaking on how much the company had contributed into the Nigerian purse from 2012-2016, Okunbor stated the figure as $1.4 billion (SPDC $1.0 billion and Shell Nigeria.
Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) $0.4 billion). He said the amount is besides the energy the Company contributes to the Nigerian economy, with Shell-operated Ventures in Nigeria recording an output of some 572,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2016.
“Shell has been part of the Nigeria project for more than 50 years, and it is not by chance that we have remained deeply committed to the development of Nigeria, her people and her economy by efficiently and responsibly producing oil and gas in onshore and offshore as well as distributing gas to industries and producing Liquefied natural gas for export,” he said.
Okunbor said Shell’s commitment to Nigeria remains strong, saying that the company has paid special attention to the welfare of host communities, with Nigeria as the second largest recipient of social investment spending in the Shell Group after the United States.
He listed Shell’s area of focus to include community and enterprise devoted, education, health, access-to-energy and initiatives delivered through the Global Memorandum of Understanding, GMoU, which targets themes as determined by benefitting communities.
In a determined bid to involve more Nigerian contractors in their operations, Okunbor said the Shell Funding initiative was expanded with eight participating banks committing about $2.2 billion to fund contract execution by the Nigerian companies working for Shell Companies in Nigeria.
Since the programme creation in 2011, he said loans worth approximately $1 billion have been awarded to 220 small and medium-sized Nigerian enterprises with no recorded default on repayment. The Shell Contractor Fund was approved by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) at its plenary session on “Shared Value creation and local content” in December 2016 and included in the compendium of global best practices, he said.
On the area of sabotage, he said the number of sabotage-related spill declined to 45 percent compared with 93 percent in 2015.
He explained “The reduction in oil theft and sabotage-related spills from the previous year can be attributed to continued improvements in air and ground surveillance and response by the government security forces, lower production levels at SPDC JV operations in the Western part of the Niger Delta due to acts of sabotage and our divestment from key pipelines in 2015,” he said.
Okunbor added that “the company will continue to work with the government and other key stakeholders on the security challenges in our operating environment and look towards more fruitful operations to the benefit of the Nigerian state and all other shareholders”.
