₦airaland Forum

President Muhammadu Buhari has given a fresh order to the military to crack down on a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, which has been attacking oil installations.

SUNDAY PUNCH gathered on Saturday that the President gave the directive on Friday, following the group’s attack on Chevron’s platform in Warri, Delta State, on Thursday and its blowing up of pipelines linking Warri and Kaduna refineries on Friday.

Following the attack on the Okan offshore production platform on Wednesday by the militants, Chevron said it had lost about 105,000 barrels of oil production in three days.

The oil major said the incident had affected about 35,000 barrels per day of its own net crude production, or about 15 per cent of its output in the country.

“Approximately 35,000 bpd of Chevron’s net crude oil production in Nigeria are impacted,” AFP quoted a Chevron’s spokeswoman, Isabel Ordonez, as saying in a statement.

The General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Mr. Deji Haastrup, confirmed the figure.

He said, “This is a very difficult time for the country because it needs the revenue it can get from oil production. Incidents such as this have the potential to impact that. We do hope that it does not seriously affect the country.”

Workers on the pipelines told one of our correspondents that before the attack, they had pumped 28,000 barrels from the Escravos terminal on Thursday.

“Both Warri and Kaduna refineries also got a delivery rate of 903,000 barrels just before the attacks,” the workers who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

The workers said following the attacks, they counted about 10 military air patrols over the pipelines on Saturday.

They also added that it had been difficult for fire fighters to quench the fire from the bombed pipelines.

“The fire is still on and it’s going to be hard to stop it because it’s huge,” the workers said on Saturday night.

It was learnt that following the attacks, which has the potential of adversely affecting the revenue of the country, the President instructed the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Air Force to stop the activities of the new group.

A presidential aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “The President gave special instruction to the military, especially to the Chief of Naval Staff, that this ugly development of vandals in the Niger Delta should end immediately.”

It was learnt that the President also ordered the Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas, to ensure that all waterways and platforms were protected against further attacks by the militants.

The Acting Director, Defence Information, Brig. -Gen. Rabe Abubakar, in an interview with one of our correspondents on Saturday, confirmed that the military had gotten the directive.

He said, “We have the order from the President and we are monitoring the activities of the new group. All efforts will be made to bring out those behind it.

“The suspects who perpetrated the first vandalism were apprehended and paraded the day before yesterday (Thursday).

“These ones are not going to be different. We are going out on our operation to stop and apprehend them in accordance with the presidential directive.”

Abubakar was not specific about what measures would be taken to address the current situation.

“We are not deterred; nobody is happy about it but we are not deterred from doing what we are doing. And more proactive measures would be put in place.

“What they are doing is complete economic sabotage; it is economic terrorism,” he said.

Buhari had in April threatened that his administration would descend heavily on oil and gas pipelines vandals as well as other saboteurs the same way the nation’s Armed Forces were dealing with members of the Boko Haram sect.

The President who spoke in Beijing during a meeting he had with members of the Nigerian community in China, warned vandals and saboteurs blowing up oil and gas installations in Niger

Aggrieved former ministers, who served under the Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government, have said that the forthcoming national convention of the party may turn out to be used as a burial day for the former ruling party.

They said that unless the National Chairman of the party, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff retraced his steps from contesting at the convention, the coffin of the party would be nailed at the event.

The convention, which is slated for May 21 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, is to be used to elect national officers of the party.

At the last meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee, the offices were shared among the six geo-political zones.

However, of all the offices, party members are miffed that the office of the national chairman was zoned to the North-East where Sheriff hails from.

Sheriff, a former governor of Borno State, is the only formidable candidate for the position from the North-East.

Apart from the anger that the office was primarily zoned to Sheriff who is a new entrant to the party, majority of the members of the party are also complaining that the same North-East has produced the last two national chairmen of the party.

These former chairmen are Bamanga Tukur and a former Governor of Bauchi State, Adamu Mu’azu.

The former ministers said that Sheriff must drop his ambition or he would be the last national chairman to lead a united PDP.

Spokesperson for the ex-ministers, who is also a former Minister of National Planning, Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, said this while speaking with two journalists in Abuja on Saturday.

He argued that any attempt by Sheriff to consolidate his position at the convention would spell doom for the party, adding that most stakeholders would dump the PDP and “allow it to continue to swim in impunity.”

He said concerned PDP members and stakeholders would not keep quiet and allow Sheriff to hijack the party because of his ambition, adding that the right thing needed to be done for the party to regain power at the centre in 2019.

He said, “Ali Modu Sheriff is there to perform the final funeral rites of the PDP. The May 21 national convention will mark the lying in state of the PDP which will be forever. We will not stop talking until the right thing is done.

“With what he is doing now, I think he is on a mission. The national convention must not hold on May 21. If it must hold, it will be the day of celebration of funeral rites of the PDP.”

Sulaiman added that it was “the impunity” in the PDP that led to the party’s defeat at the 2015 general elections, and urged party members and leaders at all levels to end impunity and re-position the party for future victory.

He described as political fault, the zoning of both the chairmanship and 2019 presidential ticket of the party to the North, claiming that “it is the work of Ali Modu Sheriff and his cohorts.”

Meanwhile, the members of the Board of Trustees are meeting Abuja on Monday to deliberate on the crisis rocking the party.

Our correspondent gathered that the board would also review the plan by Sheriff to amend the party’s constitution and make it almost impossible for the BoT to meet without his approval.

The National Working Committee of the party led by Sheriff has inserted a clause under the yet-to-be approved amended constitution, that the chairman of the BoT must inform the national chairman of the PDP before calling for the board’s meeting.

The majority of the members of the board have decried this aspect among other ones, as undemocratic and an act aimed at reducing the powers and influence of the board.

Efforts made to get the reaction of the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Olisa Metuh, were not successful. Calls made to his mobile telephone indicated that it was switched off. He also did not respond to a text message sent to him.

cuteboy2:
Better wake up to reality and get your facts right.

100% of the oil from Aje field opened up this week (about 40,000 barrels/day when they attain peak production) by Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum belongs to Yinka Folawiyo because the field was given to him as marginal field.

Same way it was given to:
+ Tunde Afolabi of Amni Petroleum,
+ Alhaji Indimi of Oriental Oil,
+ MKO Abiola of Summit Oil,
+ Mike Adenuga of Conoil,
+ Wale Tinubu of Oando Energy Resources,
amongst others.

The Aje field is not a Joint Venture field like those held by Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Total or AGIP.

Not s single drop of the oil belongs to Lagos State or Fed Govt. Yinka Folawiyo will pay taxes, which in most cases they manipulate and underpay anyway.

You need to look for something else to give you comfort, bro

Enugu—THE former governor of old Enugu State, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo has lamented what he described as non-payment of pensions to former governors in the state unlike other parts of the country.


Nwodo spoke at an Easter lunch with the Bishop of Nsukka Catholic Diocese, Most Rev. Godfrey Igwebuike Onah and other leaders in the zone at St Theresa’s Secondary School, Nsukka.

Among those who graced the occasion were Governor Ifeanyi Ugwanyi of Enugu State, former Deputy Governor of the state, Dr Okechukwu Itanyi, Senator Chuka Utazi, the former Information Minister, Chief Nnia John Nwodo, former Speaker of the Enugu State House of Assembly, Eugene Odo, Chief Maduka Ugwu, Prof Charles Attah, Prof Simon Asogwa, Chief Sam Onyishi, Chief Vita Abbah, Dr Pat Asadu, Ambassador Kingsley Ebenyi, Chief Charles Nwodo, Steve Okolo and James Ajibo.

However, Nwodo said that former governors of the state and their deputies were not paid pensions like their counterparts in the country and pledged to contribute N2 million towards the completion of the cathedral which was started during his administration.

Although, he did not explain further, it was learnt for example that the former governors received about N200, 000 while their deputies received about N174,000 which represented their monthly salaries while in office.

They are not provided with vehicles or official drivers like in the neighbouring Imo State or Lagos State where their vehicles are changed every four years, prompting the former governor of old Anambra State, Chief Jim Nwobodo as well as Dr Nwodo and Dr Chimaroke Nnamani who governed the state from 1999 to 2007 to reject such payment..

Yorubanews:
Our leaders are just waking up ba?
Ogun, Ondo, and Ekiti please follow suite.
I doubt Ekiti will do much right now because the state currently has no leader.

diana158:
.

atarapa:
O.p.c take note

Twenty years after it was discovered, the Aje field located in Oil Mining Lease 113 has achieved its first oil, putting Lagos on the list of oil-producing states in the country.

The milestone is coming after several missed targets for the achievement of first oil, the latest being March this year.

Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Company Limited, a wholly-owned indigenous firm and operator of the OML 113 offshore Lagos, on Tuesday announced the commencement of production of crude oil from the field. Other partners are New Age Exploration Nigeria Limited, EER (Colobus) Nigeria Limited, Pan Petroleum (Panoro Energy) Aje Limited and PR Oil & Gas Nigeria Limited.

Panoro had in an update posted on its website on April 20 said the final hook-up procedures were in progress with a view to bringing the wells into production shortly.

The YFP said after over 25 years of exploratory, appraisal and developmental activities, it had successfully pioneered the opening of the Frontier Benin Embayment, describing the Aje field as the first to record production from this part of Nigeria and the first production outside of the Niger Delta.

It said the inauguration of the Front Puffin Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel was successfully completed after its arrival in Nigeria on March 16, 2016.

Oil produced from the Aje field will be stored on the Front Puffin, which has production capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil per day and storage capacity of 750,000 barrels, according to the YFP.

The Chairman, YFP, Mr. Tunde Folawiyo, was quoted in a statement to have said, “The attainment of this milestone is indeed a laudable achievement not just for the YFP, but for the Nigerian oil and gas industry as a whole and indeed Lagos State, which can now be addressed as an oil-producing state.”

He said recording the achievement in the present global oil climate, together with the peculiar challenges of the field, was clearly a no mean feat.

“We are very proud of and appreciate the efforts, determination and commitment of the entire Aje project team, past and present; the constant support from our regulators, the DPR and Ministry of Petroleum; and our financiers. We believe this crucial support will spur us on to even greater achievements,” Folawiyo added.

Aje is an offshore field located in OML 113 in the western part of Nigeria in the Dahomey Basin. The field is situated in water depths ranging from 100 to 1,000 metres and is about 24 kilometres from the coast. It contains hydrocarbon resources in sandstone reservoirs in three main levels – a Turonian gas condensate reservoir, a Cenomanian oil reservoir and an Albian gas condensate reservoir.

The joint venture partners had in October 2014 taken the final investment decision to develop the first phase of the field.

They submitted the Field Development Plan to the Department of Petroleum Resources in January 2014 and it was approved in March, with first oil expected late in 2015.

Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum was granted the Oil Prospecting License 309 in June 1991 as a sole risk contract under the Federal Government’s Indigenous Allocation Programme, which was put in place to encourage the development of a locally-owned and operated Nigerian upstream oil industry.

The company said following the acquisition of 2D seismic data in 1994/95, and the drilling of the Aje-1 well in 1996, the field was discovered, adding that a second well, Aje-2, was drilled in 1997.

After the successful drilling and testing of both wells, OPL 309 was converted to OML 113 in 1998, with an initial term of 20 years, it said on its website.

kingphilip:
yea do u want to take over

kingphilip:
u and who

ChukwuIbrahim:
mtchew! NANSENSE! I c art of creativity in a beauriful dress

HERSLEY:
Lol one of the reasons I love 9ja. People can be smart! Especially on twitter. Not the dummies here always tribe fighting.

misspetit:
Thanks E-bae No where to be found.... Lolz Hmmmmm I am so E-single

misspetit:
Awwww kingphilip so totful of u Thanks