Port Harcourt, Nigeria | – The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), Thursday declared a force majeure on its EA field in the Niger Delta region, shutting in about 40,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Nigeria will lose $4.24 million daily, as a result of the shut in. A statement by Precious Okolobo, Shell Nigeria’s Corporate Media Relations Manager, said 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.
He said: “Recent bad weather offshore damaged the SYMP bearing, thereby necessitating the shutdown of the facility.
“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 daily for about 10 weeks when Shell shut down the 400,000 barrels per day Forcados oil export terminal.
The shutdown, according to Precious Okolobo, was due to a sabotaged undersea pipeline and had cost the country about $1.988 billion.
Okolobo had in April, several weeks into the closure, stated that the force majeure declared March 25 remains in effect.
