OPEC member Nigeria's oil production has risen above 2 million b/d for the first time in several months but total outages remain at a staggering 1.5 million b/d.
Platts' latest estimates show that output now stands at 2.16 million b/d , having slipped to below 1.5 million b/d n April but that a total 1.533 million b/d remains shut due to militant attacks and operational difficulties at fields in the country's southern oilpatch.
Shell, which has been the prime target of a two-year campaign of attacks on the country's oil industry, is struggling to repair two of its pipelines damaged in a July 28 militant attack. The attack on the Nembe Creek and Trans-Niger lines, which pipe crude to the Bonny export terminal, had initially wiped out 120,000 b/d of output but this has gradually risen to 175,000 b/d.
The company declared a force majeure on its Bonny Light exports after the attack for July through to September, just a few weeks after it had lifted a similar measure on its Bonga shipments.
The breakdown of production shut-in due to civil strife, by company and field:
Shell - Forcados: 150,,000 b/d since February 2006
Shell- Bonny: 1750,000 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
Chevron - Abiteye-Olero: 120,000 b/d since June 2008
Total 650,000 b/d
The figure lines up with what Nigeria's oil minister Odein Ajumogobia said July 30 when he said shut-ins are now averaging 650,000 b/d of crude production due to civil strife in the delta. Wwith oil prices above $120/barrel the lost oil costs the country Naira 8 bill ($67.8 million) per day, he said.
Nigeria produced an average of 2.13 million b/d in 2007 but it has since slipped from its position as Africa's largest oil producer, being overtaken in April by Angola.
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