A new report released by the United States Department of State says an estimated 587,000 bbl/d of crude production was shut-in in Nigeria as of April 2007, owing to increased pipeline vandalism, kidnappings and militant takeover of oil facilities in the Niger Delta.
This has caused the country loses estimated at $16 billion dollars in export revenues since December 2005.
The majority of shut-in, the report observed, is located onshore in the Niger Delta, with Shell incurring most of it (477,000bbl/d), followed by Chevron (70,000 bbl/d) and Agip (40,000 bbl/d).
The report entitled, �Nigeria Energy Data, Statistics and Analysis � Oil, Gas, Electricity, Coal�, stated that militant attacks have had a negative impact on Nigeria�s domestic refining capabilities.
Giving instances, it said attacks in February 2006, in the Western Delta region forced the Warrri (125,000bbl/d) and the Kaduna (110,000 bbl/d) refineries to shut down. This was followed by the shut down of two refineries in Port Harcourt in December 2006 due to lack of feedstocks.
In spite of the shut-in production, the report says Nigerian importers of crude oil have �experienced little to no decrease in Nigerian crude imports over the past 15 months. The steady exports suggest that the new production capacity additions (approximately 545,000 bbl/d) have mostly offset shut-in production.�
In 2006, Nigeria shipped approximately 42 per cent of its crude exports to the US, 19 per cent to Europe, 7.6 per cent to South America, Asia and the Caribbean, it states. The percentage of Nigeria�s export to the US, perhaps, confirms recent reports that it has surpassed Venezuela and Saudi-Arabia to become the third largest export of oil to the US
The report also revealed that Nigeria had 36.2 billion barrels of oil reserves as of January 2007, with the government planning to expand it to 40 billion barrels by 2010.
The majority of reserves, it says, are found along the Niger River Delta and offshore in the Bight of Benin, Gulf of Guinea and Bight of Bonny. The Bonga field is estimated to hold recoverable oil reserves of 600 million barrels.
In 2006, total Nigerian oil production, including lease condensates, natural gas liquids and refinery gain averaged 2.45 million bbl/d (of which 2.28 million bbl/d was crude oil), it says. It advised that if Nigeria could bring back all oil currently shut-in, the country could reach crude oil production capacity of three million bbl/d.
Jul192007