Delta insurgents cut Nigerian oil output by 800,000 b/d: official

Lagos (Platts)--11Jun2006

Attacks on oil industry personnel and facilities by militants in the
Niger Delta have cut Nigeria's oil output by up to 800,000 b/d, a government
official said Sunday. "These are very trying times for our industry ... In
Nigeria we shut in over 800,000 b/d of our oil production," the head of the
Department of Petroleum Resources, Tony Chukwueke, said at an oil industry
stakeholders' seminar in Lagos.
"What is happening in the Niger Delta is having an effect on our
operation to the extent that that would go to affect our production. The
entire Shell western area is shut down now. This is what should make all of us
think of what we are going to do to bring an end to that situation," he said.
The loss represents 32% of Nigeria's total production of 2.5 million b/d.
Militant groups led by the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta
have spearheaded attacks on oil production facilities in the region since last
February. In the latest of such attacks last Thursday, militants stormed the
Cowthorne flow station belonging to Shell, kidnapping five foreign workers.
The hostages were released Friday but Shell is yet to reopen the facility.
Chukwueke said the developments in the Niger Delta posed a challenge not
only to the Nigerian government, but to all stakeholders in the country's oil
industry. "[The Nigerian] president is focused on it, the minister of state
for petroleum is focused on it, the DPR, the NNPC, the entire operators in the
sector are focused on it," he said.
Chukwueke added, however, that the situation in the Niger Delta has not
reached a level to scare investors, both local and foreign. He said the oil
gas business was a long-term one and not on in which investors took decisions
on a transient basis. "Nigeria remains the place to invest," he added.


 

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