Output at Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude terminal, operated by Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research), has fallen to around 90,000 barrels per day because of security concerns in the Niger Delta, a senior official with state-run NNPC said on Friday.
Shell warned on Thursday that unrest in the Niger Delta, the heart of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, meant it may be unable to meet some oil export obligations from its Bonny terminal for the rest of this month and some of next [ID:nLC815941].
“It’s currently at 90,000 barrels per day. We hope to get it back to at least 200,000 in the coming days,” a senior NNPC official told Reuters. Output over the previous year or so had averaged around 200,000 barrels a day, he added.
Production of Bonny Light, a light crude oil popular with U.S. and European refiners, has fallen sharply in the last few years since the region’s main militant group, MEND, began a campaign of violence against the oil industry.
The NNPC official said the Bonny terminal was producing more than 500,000 bpd before the attacks started in early 2006. A fifth of the country’s output has been shut down since then.
Shell on Thursday said it had declared force majeure on its Bonny Light crude oil shipments with effect from Tuesday because of “logistics challenges” caused by insecurity in the delta.
It had only lifted a previous force majeure — which frees it from contractual obligations — on Bonny exports just over a month ago.
Gunmen in January attacked an oil tanker and an oil services vessel at the Bonny crude loading platform and used dynamite to attack another tanker loaded with 4,000 tonnes of diesel at the nearby Bonny Fairway Buoy.
Africa’s top oil producer has one of the world’s highest exposures to piracy, second only to Somalia, while the creeks of the Niger Delta are notoriously difficult to police.