Nigeria’s Oil Production Rises as Shell Resumes Shipments

Nigeria’s oil production may increase as Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) reports that after a lengthy interruption caused by a pipeline breach at the export terminal, it has resumed loading on Nigeria’s Forcados crude oil.

Workers noticed odours close to a single buoy mooring where oil was being put onto a vessel on the evening of July 12. Forcados was expected to export 220,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July.

Injections into the terminal were decreased in response to the report, but no declaration of force majeure was made, a spokeswoman for the Nigerian branch of Shell told Reuters.

According to a Shell official, the reason for the suspension was discovered through a cooperative investigation including members of the business and community as well as government agencies.

Nigeria was the second-largest contributor to the decrease in OPEC crude oil output in July as a result of the suspension of Forcados loadings.

According to the most recent data by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, the outage played a significant part in Nigeria’s crude oil production decline to 1.29 million bpd in July.