Nigeria’s prospects for increased revenue have been revitalized with an anticipated rise in the country’s crude oil production by a minimum of 350,000 barrels per day. This positive development stems from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s (NNPCL) decision to recommence operations at the Forcados Terminal.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶
The move signifies significant progress toward achieving the country’s oil projection target of 1.8 million barrels per day by August….CONTINUE READING
This achievement is noteworthy considering the recent setback caused by a month-long outage at the Trans Niger Pipelines System, due to repairs at the Aleto segment and a loading system leak at the Forcados export terminal.
Both the Forcados and Aleto terminals are under the management of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).
The Forcados export, which was initially slated to ship around 225,000 barrels per day in July, experienced a halt on July 12, 2023, due to identified leaks on a single buoy mooring, a floating loading facility used for offshore cargo discharge.
A source within NNPCL disclosed that injections into the terminal were curtailed in response to the reported issue, though no force majeure was invoked.
Collaborative investigations involving NNPCL Upstream Unit, SPDC, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), relevant stakeholders, and government agencies established the cause of the suspension.
The disruption in Forcados loadings resulted in the deferment of approximately 250,000 barrels per day production, contributing to Nigeria’s diminished OPEC crude oil output in July.
It’s worth noting that the Trans Niger Pipeline system had been shut down due to a spill at Aleto, near Eleme, Rivers State. This pipeline, responsible for exporting Bonny Light crude, has a capacity of 180,000 barrels per day.
The outage of the Trans Niger Pipeline system led to a further deferment of over 120,000 barrels per day production in Nigeria.
The cumulative effect of these setbacks, impacting both the Bonny and Forcados terminals, is estimated at over 350,000 barrels per day deferment in crude oil production.
These occurrences significantly contributed to Nigeria’s reduced crude oil production levels, which stood at 1.29 million barrels per day in July, according to the latest report from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.
