Royal Dutch Shell has closed the Nembe Creek oil pipeline, which carries Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude to export terminals, for planned maintenance work, the company said on Thursday.
There was no indication as to whether the “short term” engineering work would affect Bonny Light exports, and the company would not give a timeline for the maintenance.
The Atlantic Basin market is facing nagging oversupply, meaning even a smaller export programme is unlikely to significantly affect prices.
May loading programmes for all Nigerian grades are expected this week, but roughly 25 of the total 61 cargoes of Nigerian crude for April export are still available for sale.
For April, five cargoes of Bonny Light for a total of just over 163,000 barrels per day were offered for export.