The company also stressed that security in parts of the Niger Delta remains a major concern with persisting incidents of criminality, kidnapping and vandalism as well as onshore and offshore piracy.
According to information contained in the company’s latest Briefing Notes, “Although there has been no damage to key oil and gas infrastructure caused by militant activity since November 2016, the security situation remains volatile in this region of the country.
Operations at the SPDC JV’s Forcados Oil Terminal (FOT) were disrupted until late May 2017 while repairs to the export line were completed after three sabotage incidents in 2016. This resulted in loss of revenue, particularly for domestic producers who rely on the FOT for export.
“Facilities operated by both indigenous and international oil and gas companies continue to be vandalised by attacks and other illegal activities such as crude oil theft. This led to lower oil and gas production in 2016 particularly for indigenous producers and incidents of environmental contamination.
“The consequences also included a loss of revenue for the Federal Government of Nigeria and disruptions to gas supply to power electricity for industry, businesses and public-sector services.”
It stated further that oil spills due to crude oil theft and sabotage of facilities (referred to as third party interference), as well as illegal refining, cause the most environmental damage from oil and gas operations in the Niger Delta.
Irrespective of cause, the SPDC JV said it cleaned up and remediates areas affected by spills originating from its facilities. The spills are sometimes made worse where there are access challenges to the incident sites to investigate and stop leaks.
Crude oil theft on the pipeline network resulted in a loss of about 9,000 barrels of oil a day (bbl/d) in 2017, which is more than the approximate 6,000 bbl/d in 2016 but less than 25,000 bbl/d in 2015.
The number of sabotage-related spills in 2017 decrease to 62 compared to 482 in 2016 but less than 94 in 2015. The decrease in 2017 can in part be explained by the militant-induced shutdown of the Forcados export terminal in 2016, which reduced opportunities for third party interference.
“This demonstrates that continued air and ground surveillance and action by government security forces to prevent crude oil theft remains necessary. Since 2012, SPDC has removed more than 950 illegal theft points.
“A key priority for Shell remains to achieve the goal of no spills from its operations. No spill is acceptable and we work hard to prevent them. Shell companies in Nigeria operate under the same standards as all other Shell-operated ventures globally. Regrettably, in addition to spills caused by criminal activity there were nine operational spills of more than 100 kilograms in volume from Shell Companies in Nigeria facilities during 2017, three of which were from pipelines/flowlines infrastructure (lowest in recent years). This number is one more than the eight spills in 2016.
“In 2017, the total volume of oil spilled from operational incidents was approximately 0.1 thousand tonnes, a reduction of approximately 70 per cent on the 2016 figure. The volume reduction and fewer spills from pipelines/flowlines can be attributed to continued progress on preventing operational spills, such as preventive maintenance of pipelines and routine inspections,” it stated.
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