Nigeria’s oil minister Odein Ajumogobia Monday confirmed reports that the Bonny Light crude oil facility had been attacked over the weekend.
“We do not yet know, however, whether there has been any disruption to production from the field,” the minister told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress here.
A force majeure which indemnifies operator Shell Petroleum Development Corp. from its contractual obligations, is already in place on exports from the Bonny facility until July, although traders of West African crude based in Europe said some output had resumed in recent weeks. The company declared force majeure in April after about 164,0000 barrels a day was lost following pipeline sabotage. This was later extended to cover June and July exports. The incident follows two major production outages in the restive Niger Delta region in the last two weeks, one at Royal Dutch Shell’s deepwater offshore Bonga field and the other at Chevron’s (CVX) Escravos terminal facility.
ICE Brent crude oil futures earlier Monday hit an all-time high of $143.91 a barrel, in part due to concerns over Nigerian oil supplies.
Reports from the Nigerian military suggest the incident at Bonny Island over the weekend may have been the result of a clash between army personnel and a group of gunmen, and that four people were killed. There has been a marked escalation in violence in the oil producing region in recent weeks with numerous clashes reported between rival militant groups. However, the minister sought to play down fears that the quantity of crude oil suspended as a result of deteriorating security is reaching a crisis point for the country, which recently lost its place as Africa’s biggest oil producing nation to neighboring Angola.
Ajumogobia said that the country continues to produce around 2 million barrels a day of crude and reiterated that it is important to remember that it has the capacity to produce around 3 million barrels a day.
Earlier Monday an SPDC spokesman denied any attack had taken place at the Bonny facility.