Nigeria operations: Shell is checking the Nembe Creek trunkline
Shell weighs up Nigeria damage
Shell is assessing the damage to a section of its Nembe Creek trunkline in in southern Nigeria, after a leak has forced the closure of 210,000 barrels per day in oil output, a company spokesman said today.
The Anglo-Ducth supermajor is losing 180,000 bpd because of the leak discovered last Friday in the pipeline, while Chevron is losing 30,000 bpd that should be flowing through the same pipeline.
Yesterday Shell declared a force majeure on Bonny Light exports because of the leak, but a spokesman for the Nigerian arm of Shell in Lagos said loadings were continuing at the Bonny terminal.
"More of our people have arrived in the area for containment of the spill. An investigation is ongoing to assess the damage," the spokesman told Reuters.
He said the investigation team was expected to release its findings by the end of today.
In the first few days after the leak started, Shell was having trouble getting its teams into the affected area because irate local communities were blocking them, but the spokesman said that problem had now been resolved.
The company has not made any official comment on what caused the leak, but a Shell source in the delta's main city of Port Harcourt said the damage was accidentally caused by another company working in the area.
Shell is currently losing 653,000 bpd in Nigeria, most of it because of a series of militant attacks on its facilities in February.