Nigeria Loses N678.5m Daily As Shell Declares Force Majeure

Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, SPDC, has declared force majeure on its EA field in the Niger Delta, shutting in about 40,000 barrels of crude oil per day causing Nigeria to lose $4.24 million (about N678.46 million) daily.

In a statement by Precious Okolobo, Corporate Media Relations Manager, 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 which was due to a sabotaged undersea pipeline and had cost the country about $1.988 billion (N318.108 billion).

“Recent bad weather offshore damaged the SYMP bearing, thereby necessitating the shutdown of the facility.” statement reads.

“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.