Aiteo Group, which operates the Nembe Creek Trunk Line, on Sunday said it had declared a force majeure on pipeline due to an outbreak of fire.
A force majeure is an unforeseen circumstance that prevents a party from fulfilling its contractual obligations.
A statement issued by the company spokesperson, Ndiana Matthew, said, “We have been informed of a fire outbreak by our surveillance team comprising the JTF, FSS around NCTL RoW near Awoba today, 21 April 2019.
“Our Operations Emergency Response team was immediately activated and following its urgent intervention and containment action, we are constrained to shut in injection as well as other related operations into the NCTL. In accordance with standard procedure, we requested the other injectors to do same.
“The NCTL has, hitherto, enjoyed smooth operations preceding this incident founding suspicion that this fire may have occurred through an illegitimate, third party breach of the functionality of the pipeline, critical national asset.”
The company said the relevant investigations are continuing while further information about the remote and direct causes of the fire will be communicated as soon as these become available.
“We ask our stakeholders to await further, detailed briefing in due course,” he added.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.