The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) said over 450,000 litres of premium motor spirit (PMS) have been drained from an oil leak site at Isheri Olofin, a Lagos suburb by a combined team of pipeline engineers and safety/environment experts from its subsidiary, Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC).
The corporation also reiterated that the ongoing reforms in the Oil and Gas Industry would ensure the sustainability of existing ventures as well as attract new investments into the petroleum sector of the economy.
The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs at the corporation, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, said in a statement that the quantity of the evacuated petroleum product is the equivalent of over 13 standard trucks of PMS.
He said the NNPC/PPMC team moved into the area early last month to avert a possible environmental tragedy, following a report by residents of nearby Diamond Estate that water from their wells and boreholes had been polluted with huge volume of PMS.
Speaking at the end of an on-the-spot assessment exercise, the newly appointed Managing Director of PPMC, Prince Haruna Momoh, expressed the corporation’s determination to avert any tragic incident arising from the unfortunate development.
“Our priority is safety. That is why the Group Managing Director of the NNPC dispatched this top Management team to undertake a first hand appraisal of work progress. I am happy we have a competent technical team that is capable and well equipped to arrest the situation as quickly as possible,” Momoh said.
Shedding more light on the exercise, Ajuonuma said the Corporation mobilised apt human and material resources to tackle the matter squarely. “The NNPC Management is going full blast to tackle the situation. We have deployed a formidable team
of pipeline engineers and technologists to crack the riddle while we carry on with the evacuation programme,” he said.
He stated that once the technical team is through with the evacuation of the polluted wells, the next stage is to conduct a proper laboratory test on the wells and other sources of drinking water within the estate to ensure that the water is completely free from any trace of hydrocarbon.
