Bloomberg: IEA Says 500,000 Barrels/Day of Nigerian Oil Output Still Shut
By Alexander Kwiatkowski
May 13 (Bloomberg) — The International Energy Agency, the energy adviser to 27 nations, expects about 500,000 barrels a day of Nigerian crude production to remain shut for the “foreseeable future” while output is still threatened by further industrial action.
“With production outages ebbing and flowing, we see little reason for now to change our working assumption that some 500,000 barrels a day of Nigerian capacity remains offline for the foreseeable future,” the agency said today in its monthly report.
As much as 1.4 million barrels a day of Nigerian output was closed in April after attacks by militants reduced Royal Dutch Shell Plc‘s production and Exxon Mobil Corp.‘s Nigerian operations were completely halted by industrial action, according to the IEA report. Nigeria pumped an average of 2.01 million barrels a day of crude in March, the agency said.
Exxon Mobil resumed operations last week after the strike was called off, the company said, while about 164,000 barrels a day of output attributable to Shell’s 30 percent interest in the Shell Petroleum Development Co., remains closed, spokesman Rainer Winzenried said previously.
The company has declined to specify how much of the venture’s total production is closed, only commenting on Shell’s own share. State-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. owns 55 percent while Total SA has a 10 percent stake and Eni SpA holds 5 percent. Shell’s Winzenried could not be reached for immediate comment.
Negotiations over the pay dispute which led to the cut in Exxon’s production “could prove protracted,” the IEA said, while “Shell is also pursuing restructuring plans which could lead to significant redundancies, raising the prospect of further strike action.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at[email protected]
Last Updated: May 13, 2008 06:41 EDT
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