Floods reduced oil production by 500,000 bpd in third quarter – DPR

Department of Petroleum Resources yesterday (Tuesday) said that Nigeria’s daily crude oil production for the third quarter of 2012 dipped by 500,000 barrels as a result of production shut-down caused by the ravaging floods in some parts of the country.
The department said the actual crude oil (plus condensate) production of the nation was 2.5 million barrels per day for the period.
The Director, DPR, Mr. Osten Olorunshola, who said this in Lagos on Tuesday at a press conference, said, “Flooding in quarter three led to a total shut down of 0.5 million bpd.”
Some of the companies hit by the flood, he said, were marginal field operator, Sterling Energy, Total Exploration and Producing and Agip, among others.
Olorunshola, however, said the floods were no threats to oil and gas assets in the country in the long-run, as production would gradually pick up as the floods subsided.
According to him, the country’s reserves as at January 1, 2012 were 31.170 billion barrels for oil, 5.018 billion barrels for condensate; 92.6 trillion cubic feet of associated gas and 90.150 tcf for non-associated gas.
A major enhancement to deep water oil production, he said, was achieved when Total’s Usan Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel, with capacity to process 180 million bpd, was inaugurated in April this year.
He said a marginal field player, Niger Delta Petroleum Resources, was currently refining 1,000 barrels of oil per day from its new refinery, which recently came on stream.
Olorunshola said as at Monday this week, oil production had risen to 2.3 million bpd as a result of the decreasing flood level.
“Associated gas flared average was 1.4 billion cubic feet per day, approximately 18 per cent of total gas produced, a reduction of five to seven per cent from the end of 2011 flaring average,” the DPR boss explained.
He said there were renewed shallow offshore leases for Exxon Mobil Joint Venture, adding that the case was similar for Chevron Nigeria, Shell Production Development Company, Total and Dubri Oil, though in progress.
Total declares force majeure
Shell said its Nigerian venture had declared force majeure on exports of the Bonny and Forcados crudes on Friday, citing damage caused by thieves and flooding affecting a third-party supplier it did not identify.
Bonny Light and Forcados are two of Nigeria’s most important oil grades and in October accounted for 427,000 bpd, about a fifth of the country’s total exports of 2.048 million bpd.
On Sept. 30, Shell said its Nigerian unit closed the Bonny pipeline which sends crude to the Bonny terminal and stopped 150,000 bpd of production after oil thieves caused a fire.
Separately, French oil company Total on Tuesday told Reuters it had stopped oil and gas production from its onshore OML 58 block due to flooding. The block, in which Total has a 40 percent stake, normally produces the equivalent of 90,000 bpd of oil.
 BusinessNews