Vunderkind
Social Member
Nigerian oil thieves struck again this week, drilling holes into a Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE:RDS.A) pipeline, which has since forced the company to shut down the pipeline to stop leaking. This is just one of a series of such vandalisms on that specific pipeline.
A spokesman of SPDC Nigeria, Precious Okolobo told Dow Jones Newswires “we closed the Nembe Creek Trunkline on Sunday for the removal of crude theft points. We plan to complete the exercise and reopen the line as soon as possible.”
The amount of crude lost is unknown.
Shell has, for a long time now, owned a stake in the pipeline, which transports 150,000 barrels of oil daily, and the company has had to close it down many times due to theft since it replaced the pipeline in December 2010 (due to aging) for $1.1 billion.
Mutiu Sunmonu, head of the Nigerian Unit of Shell, said last year that the attacks on the Nembe Creek Pipeline have been “unprecedented [and] more than 60,000 barrels of oil are being stolen a day, resulting in frequent production shutdowns and massive oil spills blighting the ecosystem.”
Shell also announced last year its intentions to sell the 97-km pipeline, due to persistent losses from theft and destruction.
