State oil firm Nigerian National Petroleum Corp said it recorded 3,153 punctured points on its oil pipelines in the 12 months to end March, adding that continued crude and oil products losses were draining it financially.
"Incessant vandalism and products theft have continued to destroy value and put NNPC at [a] disadvantaged competitive position," the NNPC said.
NNPC recorded an operating deficit of Naira 24.23 billion ($123 million) in February and Naira 18.89 in March, it said, on the back of attacks on the Forcados crude export line that resulted in the loss of the entire oil export revenues of its subsidiary, NPDC.
NNPC said the crippling of the 48-inch Forcados export line resulted in the shut-in exports of 300,000 b/d of the Forcados crude grade since February.
NNPC manages the government's average 57% interest in joint ventures with foreign oil firms including Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total.
It said that due to dwindling revenue, it used $4.3 billion, or 95.9% of total export earnings between April 2015 and March 2016, to fund joint venture cash calls, thus transferring little into the so-called Federation Account.
"NNPC is currently engaging the JV operators for alternative ways to defray the current upstream [joint venture] funding gap and cash call arrears," it said.
Attacks on pipeline and other production facilities have risen in Nigeria's southern oil patch after the government terminated pipeline protection contracts for former militants in the Niger Delta and also began probing a former militant leader on corruption charges.
While President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed military to crack down on the militants, a new rebel group claiming responsibility for the new violence in the oil region, the Niger Delta Avengers, has threatened more attacks on oil installations.
