Nigeria’s exports of liquefied natural gas saw a significant decline of 20 per cent last week, following an attack by suspected vandals who damaged crucial pipelines.
is disruption severely affected gas supplies to the country’s LNG plants, leading to a sharp reduction in production and exports, a report by Bloomberg stated on Thursday.
The hit on the country’s LNG exports is due to persistent vandalism and sabotage of pipelines in the Niger Delta region.
The report stated that the sabotage and vandalism has curtailed gas supplies to its plant and is affecting scheduled shipments.
The development indicates that the Federal Government is likely to lose projected revenue remittance from the company to fund its N49.74tn 2025 budget.
The NLNG’s General Manager for external relations and sustainable development, Sophia Horsfall, in an email response said, “The loss of facilities due to vandalism and sabotage impacts feed-gas supplies to NLNG and delivery timelines.”
It was noted that shipments planned for exports next month may be delayed for at least 10 days due to the substantial loss of pipeline vandalism.
Nigeria’s gas exports have faced disruptions due to security issues in the Niger Delta region, although shipments from the NLNG complex saw a rebound in 2024.
With the persistent sabotage of oil and gas installations, Nigeria is losing its recent gains in production and supplies, and it’s unable to meet demands.
In 2022, NLNG declared ‘force majeure’, that is, it requested to be released from its contractual obligations as it could not guarantee deliveries due to unforeseen circumstances beyond its control.
Horsfall further stated, “The firm continues to engage its feed gas suppliers and relevant government security agencies for an improved security regime for upstream production and transmission.
“Recent efforts by these stakeholders have shown promising outcomes. These outcomes are being evaluated for consistency.”
Meanwhile, the latest export setback coincides with soaring European demand for LNG, driven by the loss of Russian piped gas and depleting reserves in Europe.
The PUNCH reported last week that Portugal has indicated plans to increase the purchases of Liquefied Natural Gas from Nigeria and the United States as part of efforts to reduce dependence on the already dwindling supplies from Russia.
It also coincides with a report that oil theft cases represent 84 per cent of the primary causes behind 2,654 oil spill incidents recorded between 2021 and 2024.
Pipeline vandalism and oil theft continue unabated in the Niger Delta region despite reported triumphant gains by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited in its war against crude oil theft.
The national oil company reported the discovery of thousands of illegal refineries and pipeline connections in 2024. This year, it has reported the discovery of over 300 illegal refineries and about 100 illegal pipeline connections.
President Bola Tinubu targets an increase in oil production from the current daily average of below 1.5 million barrels per day to 2.06 million bpd. However, experts say this may not be achieved if the insecurity in the oil-rich Niger Delta persists.