Agip, Aiteo lose 140,000bpd of crude oil

Simon Utebor and  Ovie Okpare

Following attacks by a militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, the Nigerian Agip Oil Company and Aiteo Oil are losing about 140,000 barrels of crude oil per day from their oilfields in Bayelsa State, it has been learnt.

At about $48 per barrel, an estimated $6.72m daily is lost by the two operators due to attacks on oil export pipelines operated by them.

Eni, an Italian energy firm and parent company of Agip, said the firm’s production had been cut by 65,000 barrels per day, following Friday’s attack on its pipeline in Bayelsa.

Earlier attacks on the oilfield on May 18 and May 24 had resulted in the shut-in of some 5,200 barrels of Eni’s equity share of oil output.

An Eni spokesperson confirmed the development in an electronic mail on Sunday.

“The total deferred production due to the attack is 65,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily. I can confirm that. There is no further impact on production, since all production from the swamp area was stopped days ago,” the spokesperson said.

Aiteo, the operator of the Nembe Creek trunkline, which came under attack by the NDA on May 28, according to its spokesman, Mr. Sola Omole, shut the line conveying crude to the Bonny export terminal.

Omole said 75,000 barrels of daily production were deferred as the line remained out of service.

Although figures from Shell Petroleum Development Company could not be obtained, the oil firm had similarly declared force majeure on its oil exports from the Bonny export terminal.

Force Majeure is a legal clause that frees a company from liabilities arising from its inability to meet contractual obligations due to reasons beyond its control.

The SPDC, which in 2014, sold the 100km Nembe Creek trunkline to Aiteo, still relies on the line to lift crude produced from onshore oilfields in Bayelsa to the Bonny terminal in Rivers State.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, was quoted on Thursday as saying that Nigeria was producing 1.6 million barrels per day, excluding further production outages due to the attacks on Agip, Chevron and Shell recently.

Observers believe that the development is likely to affect the implementation of the 2016 budget premised on a daily production of 2.2 million barrels of crude oil.

Meanwhile, at least seven persons, including three personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, have been arrested by the operatives of the Joint Task Force in connection with last Friday’s attack on Shell’s Forcados export pipeline in Delta State.

The PUNCH reliably learnt from a senior military officer that the suspects were arrested on Sunday morning during a raid on hideouts for suspected militants in Ogulagha community in the Burutu Council Area of the state.

It was gathered that the NSCDC officials were arrested for negligence of duty as the attacked export pipeline was less than 50 metres away from their post.

“I can confirm to you that our men arrested seven suspects early this morning (Sunday). Of the seven suspects, three are civil defence personnel, while others are civilians. The suspects will be paraded soon,” the senior military officer told one of our correspondents on the telephone.

The Chairman of Ogulagha Chapter, Ijaw Youth Council, Mr. Doubra Collins Okotete, confirmed the incident, saying that those arrested were not militants as being speculated by the military.

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