Oil-company and Nigerian officials said on Friday they were optimistic that the country’s oil production would recover as soon as next week, following rebel attacks this year that knocked out more than a quarter of the country’s oil flows.
Malcolm Brinded, Royal Dutch Shell’s executive director of exploration and production, said some 455 000 barrels a day of its joint-venture output in Nigeria remained locked down.
However, ”after the meeting the [Nigerian] president held this week, I’m very optimistic we’ll be able to go and review the assets in the near future”, he said at an oil conference in Paris.
President Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday set up a commission to tackle the crises in the Niger Delta.
Nigeria’s Oil Minister Edmund Daukoru, who is also the president of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, added he believed Shell’s 115 000 barrel-a-day shallow-water EA field will start to produce oil again ”early next week”.
The company evacuated EA following attacks by ethnic rebel group the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. The attacks cut Nigeria’s crude oil production by as much as 640 000 barrels a day, out of a total 2,4 million-barrels per day.
Almost half of the country’s daily output comes from Shell-run operations. Nigeria is the fifth-largest exporter of crude oil to the United States. — Sapa-AP