Two oil firms operating in Nigeria say they lose 140,000 barrels of crude daily due to recent attacks on their facilities by militants.
The attacks by a militant group, believed to be the Niger Delta Avengers, caused the loss, according to Eni and Aiteo from their oilfields in Bayelsa.
At about $48 per barrel, an estimated $6.72 million (N1.3 billion) daily is lost by the two operators due to the attacks.
Eni, the Italian energy firm and parent company of Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) said its production was cut by 65,000 barrels per day following Friday’s attack on its pipeline in Bayelsa.
Earlier attacks in the oilfield on May 18 and 24 had resulted in a shutdown of some 5,200 barrels of Eni’s production.
An Eni Spokesperson confirmed the development in an email 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 has already been stopped days ago.,” the email from Eni’s Media Relations Unit said.
Also, Aiteo, operator of the Nembe Creek Trunk Line, said the line was shut after it came under attack on May 28 by militants believed to be members of the Niger Delta Avengers. The line conveys crude to the Bonny export terminal.
The spokesperson for Aiteo, Shola Omole, said some 75,000 barrels daily production was deferred as the line remained shut.
Although figures from Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, could not be obtained for this report, the oil firm had placed its oil exports from Bonny export terminal under force majeure.
SPDC, which in 2014 sold the 100 km Nembe Creek Trunk Line to Aiteo, still relies on the line to lift crude produced from onshore oilfields in Bayelsa to the Bonny Terminal in Rivers.
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The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, had said on Thursday that Nigeria was producing 1.6 million barrels per day which excludes further production outages due to attack on Agip, Chevron and Shell at the weekend.
The development will likely affect the implementation of the 2016 budget premised on a daily crude oil production of 2.2 million barrels of crude per day.
The Niger Delta Avengers, has claimed responsibility for most of the recent attacks. The group rejected dialogue with the federal government calling instead for a Niger Delta republic.
The Nigerian military has vowed to deal with the militants and has deployed attack aircraft, and Naval war boats to the region.
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