Th e nation’s crude oil production has fallen from 2 million barrels per day to as low as 1.27 million bpd amid the shutdown of two major export grades.
Th e country produced 1.269 million bpd last month, according the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Th e 13-member oil cartel, in its newly released monthly oil market report for April, said Nigeria recorded the biggest decline of 157,000 bpd in March. Few days after Italy’s Eni lifted force majeure on Brass River crude oil exports from Nigeria in February, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, said crude oil production had risen to two million bpd.
But early last month, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited shut down the Bonga fi eld to enable it to commence turnaround maintenance on it, a development that has reduced oil production and exports. According to SNEPCo, production from the fi eld is expected to resume at the conclusion of the exercise this month.
Th e Bonga Floating, Production, Storage and Offl oading vessel has the capacity to produce 225,000 barrels of oil and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas per day. Th e shutdown of the Bonga fi eld came a year after Shell declared force majeure on Forcados oil exports after the terminal was shut. It has yet to be lifted as of the time of fi ling this report. Th e force majeure, a legal clause that allows a company to stop shipments without breaching contracts, was declared on February 21 after the Forcados export line was attacked by militants in the Niger Delta a week before. According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, at the Forcados terminal alone, about 300,000 bpd to 330,000 bpd were shut in since February 2016 following the force majeure declared by the SPDC.
In October last year, Shell resumed export of crude oil from the Forcados terminal following repairs, but the production wells were shut-in again due to the shutdown of the Trans Forcados Pipeline on November 9, 2016 as a result of sabotage on the 48-inch crude export line. While Nigeria had consistently been Africa’s largest oil exporter, its loadings have fallen below those of Angola several times over the past year as it dealt with militant attacks on oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta
