Evacuation Constraints halt oil Production in Nigeria

In a fresh revelation, oil workers under the aegis of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) have declared that oil companies have been forced to stop production due to evacuation challenge and the running out of storage capacity resulting from oil theft and pipeline destruction.

“production can no longer continue because tanks are filled to the brim”

The revelation came at a time Nigeria was in dire need of growing its oil production in order to benefit from the current high crude oil price hovering around $100 per barrel as well as to boost the nation’s foreign exchange earnings and the economy.

The Chairman of PENGASSAN, Lagos Zone, which is made up of the six South-west states and Kwara State, Mr. Eyam Abeng, told THISDAY during a phone chat while giving update on the union’s nationwide rally against oil theft, that, “production can no longer continue because tanks are filled to the brim.”

Warning that oil thieves and vandals might soon migrate from their Niger Delta base to Lagos State, which is now an oil producing state, Abeng, however, blamed government’s failure to punish identified perpetrators of oil theft and pipeline vandals through consequence management and enforcement of intelligence reports for the persistent of the criminal activity.