Bonga deepwater field reopened

Shell Nigeria’s deepwater Bonga field has been reopened following turnaround maintenance work, local media wrote on Wednesday.

The asset, with a production capacity of 225,000 bopd, was shut down on March 4 for planned maintenance, which mainly centred on the field’s floating production, storage and offloading vessel.

The past weeks marked the fourth maintenance programme since the start of production from Bonga in November 2005. Shell has yet to confirm the resumption of operations.

Earlier this month, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Emmanuel Kachikwu said that work at Bonga would be completed in July, and that the reopening would be preceded by the finalisation of repairs on the Forcados pipeline.

While no specific date for the conclusion of maintenance work was given upon the announcement of the production halt in March, a Shell spokesperson at the time said the company was aiming to resume operations in April.