We continue to provide readers of The Barrel with our estimate of how much crude capacity in Nigeria is out of commission as a result of civil strife, with estimates also on the amount that has been shut in for maintenance.
Platts' chief Africa correspondent, Jacinta Moran, reports from Cape Town that the latest set of numbers definitely is not showing signs of improvement. In her most recent report, a month ago, Jacinta estimated that 708,000 b/d was still shut in due to community unrest and operational problems such as pipeline damage, etc. that marked an improvement from August estimate of 978,000 b/d. But Platts is now revising upward its estimate of shut in production to 1-mil b/d.
That figure lines up with what Nigeria's oil minister Odein Ajumogobia told Platts in an interview February 1, when he said total shut-ins are now running at 1 million b/d. Of that, approximately 595,000 b/d is because of community tension, with the balance either due to planned or unplanned maintenance, and some funding difficulties.
One of the reasons for the setback was that Shell was forced to declare force majeure on Bonny Light crude oil for February and March liftings due to a leak on a pipeline that has forced to company to shut in 130,000 b/d. State-owned NNPC says Shell will have to replace a portion of the Nemba Creek trunkline that connects the 390,000 b/d Bonny terminal, and that work will take several weeks to complete.
--Shell has restored some Forcados production but has yet to lift the force majeure on liftings. NNPC is expected to resume loadings imminently.
The breakdown of production shut-in due to civil strife, by company and field:
Shell - Forcados: 260,000 b/d since February 2006
Shell- Bonny: 130,000 b/d February 2008
Shell - EA: 115,000 b/d, since February 2006
Chevron - Escravos: 70,000 b/d since March 2003
Chevron - Pennington: 20,000 b/d since June 2007
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