N678.5m Daily As Shell Shuts Field

Nigeria will lose $4.24 million (about N678.46 million) daily, as Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, SPDC, yesterday, declared force majeure on its EA field in the Niger Delta, shutting in about 40,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
*Oil Vandals
The current price of crude oil in the international market is $106.01 per barrel.A statement by Precious Okolobo, Corporate Media Relations Manager, said Shell is suspending production at the EA field for repair of the soft yoke mooring platform, SYMP.

According to him, the SYMP connects the Floating Production Storage and Offloading, FPSO, vessel, Sea Eagle, with the mooring platform. He said: “Recent bad weather offshore damaged the SYMP bearing, thereby necessitating the shutdown of the facility.“The EA field is located south-west of Warri in water depths of around 25 metres. First oil was achieved on December 14, 2002.”Shell had in February shut down the Nembe Creek Trunkline to stop a leak caused by oil theft and sabotage. 

Also in March this year, Nigeria lost about $40.567 million (N6.492 billion) daily for about 10 weeks when Shell shut down the 400,000 barrels per day Forcados oil export terminal.The shutdown, according to Precious Okolobo, was due to a sabotaged undersea pipeline and had cost the country about $1.988 billion (N318.108 billion). 

Okolobo had in April, several weeks into the closure, stated that the force majeure declared March 25 remains in effect.  Reacting to the closure, Austin Igbuku, Manager of Shell’s Ogoni Restoration Project, had also stated that crude thefts had risen to unprecedented levels, greater than the height of militancy in the Niger Delta when the United Nations estimated that about 150,000 barrels a day of crude was stolen in 2009.

Vanguard