Chevron’s Nigerian Onshore Output Halted After Attack (Update1)
By Ayesha Daya
June 22 (Bloomberg) — Chevron Corp.‘s Nigerian onshore oil output remained halted following an attack on a pipeline operated by the company, H. Odein Ajumogobia, the country’s minister of state for petroleum, said today.
Chevron Nigeria’s Abiteye-Olero pipeline was “breached” on June 19 in a suspected act of sabotage, the San Ramon, California-based company said yesterday. About 120,000 barrels a day of crude have been halted by the attack, Agence France- Presse reported.
Nigeria, Africa’s second-biggest oil producer after Angola, is currently pumping about 1.8 million barrels a day, Ajumogobia told reporters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he was attending a meeting of oil producers and consumers. Rebels in the Niger Delta, which supplies all of the nation’s crude, are sabotaging infrastructure to press their demand for a greater share of oil wealth and more political power.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc said on June 19 it shut down the Bonga oil field in Nigeria because of militant action, halting shipments of as much of 190,000 barrels a day.
“It’s too early to say” how much production has been lost due to the closure of the Bonga field, Shell Chief Executive Officer Jeroen van der Veer told reporters in Jeddah today.
Bonga Crude
Shell said June 20 it declared so-called force majeure on exports of Bonga crude for the remainder of June and July. Force majeure is a legal clause which allows producers to miss contracted deliveries because of circumstances beyond their control.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, a rebel group known as MEND, said the Chevron pipeline was attacked by “angry youths who we are now empowering with more powerful explosives and new techniques to destroy additional pipelines.”
Continuing supply disruptions in Nigeria have contributed to the near doubling of prices in the last year. Crude oil for July delivery rose $2.69, or 2 percent, to $134.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on June 20. Futures climbed to a record $139.89 on June 16.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ayesha Daya in Jeddah[email protected].
Last Updated: June 22, 2008 11:11 EDT
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