The National Oil Company of the African oil giant has invited investors willing to fix the country’s oil pipelines and depots that serve the oil refineries.

This was contained in a statement on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) website yesterday. The NNPC said the ‘incessant’ theft and vandalism of pipelines as well as ageing of the pipes have caused it to be in dire need of repairs.

The pipelines were built in the 1970s to transport oil to the country’s refineries; the Kaduna refinery, the Warri refinery and the Port Harcourt refinery.

The refineries have been running at a loss and the Oil Company had to shut all of them down earlier this year noting there is a need for urgent repairs.

In its released Financial statement for 2018 published earlier this year, it showed the Kaduna refinery generated no revenue in the year under review, although about 64 billion Naira has been spent on the resuscitation of the refinery

Bidders are expected to independently finance the project and operate it for a set period while they recover investment costs and are compensated for their efforts with throughput tariffs. It said the projects are going to be handled separately. The pipelines are to have intrusion detection systems and will be deeply buried to combat theft or vandalism. Submissions are expected from now until September 18, 2020.

Also, the Agbami grade of crude oil is posing a threat to Nigeria’s full compliance to the OPEC+ cut as well as making up for its over-pump in the earlier months.  The grade is being considered as condensate and it is exempted from the OPEC+ cut agreement. Its full compliance on the deal is dependent on the grade.

The operator and equity partner of the field, Chevron and Equinor, are being asked by the Nigerian Government to classify the grade as a condensate as both companies have always listed it as crude on their website and it is marketed as light, sweet crude oil. Famfa Oil which holds a stake in the oilfield also terms the grade as a crude.

NNPC argues that the pressure-volume temperature analysis characterisation of Agbami’s reservoir fluids prove it is not a crude, but the field partners do not agree as it is not derived from a gas condensate field.