Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has said that it was resuming 173,000 barrels per day of crude output after repairing a pipeline leak in southern Nigeria.
“The leak on a section of the Sambarth-Karkrama pipeline that we reported on the 21st of July, has been cleansed (repaired) and the pipeline is now in use,” Shell spokeswoman Caroline Wittgen told AFP.
She added: “We’re currently ramping up the production and after the full ramp-up, some 173,000 barrels per day will have been recovered.”
A leak in the pipeline, which is in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, had forced Shell to shut in 180,000 bpd of production late last month.
“Eight of the nine flow stations shut in, as a result of the leak, have been reopened,” Wittgen said.
“The ninth station is still ongoing integrity work and will be reopened at a later stage.” The remaining flowstation normally pumps some 7,000 bpd.
The leak last month came as Nigeria was already experiencing severely reduced production owing to militant unrest in the Niger Delta.
News of the fixed pipeline means that current Nigerian crude output is reduced by around 620,000 barrels per day, or 24 percent of the country’s total production.
Meanwhile, Nigerian authorities reported no progress on Friday in the search for 10 foreign oil workers kidnapped over the past 11 days in the volatile southern Niger Delta.
Nigeria, which is Africa’s biggest producer and exporter of oil, usually pumps about 2.6 million barrels of crude per day.