Nigeria’s Seplat resumes exports

Seplat Petroleum Development Company has resumed exports through the Forcados pipeline after Shell ended force majeure on Forcados terminal exports, the company confirmed this week.

Seplat’s exports from OMLs 4, 38 and 41 have returned to about 75,000 bopd and 8.21 mcm (290 mcf) per day, the same levels as before the shutdown.

The company is looking to diversify its export routes, such as through an upgrade to the Warri refinery’s two jetties to double their capacity. By 2Q 2017, Seplat will be able to export 30,000 bopd through the facility. The company is also working with the government to finish a 160,000-bopd pipeline from Amuke to Escravos.

Shell announced the lifting of force majeure Wednesday. Shipments were reportedly resumed from the Forcados terminal in late May 2017, when two tankers left the facility. The company did testing on the pipeline earlier in the month, and the Suezmax vessels Densa Orca and Astro Perseus departed the terminal the last week of May. Traders had said the facility was set to load two 950,000-barrel cargoes that month.

The pipeline has been attacked numerous times over the past several months amid unrest in the Niger Delta. The pipeline typically carried 200,000-240,000 bopd, but its outage limited exports to about 20,000 bopd by barge.

On Thursday, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Ibe Kachikwu said the country would raise USD 1.2 billion to rehabilitate its downstream facilities with the goal of ending imports of refined products by 2019. The petroleum exporter currently produces less than a fifth of the oil products it consumes.