LAGOS (Reuters) – The pipeline exporting Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude oil – typically one of the country’s largest export flows – has not carried oil since mid-June due to theft, a source told Reuters on Wednesday.
The Trans Niger Pipeline, which carries oil through the swampy southern Delta region to the Bonny export terminal on the Atlantic ocean, has a capacity of roughly 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, a significant portion of the nation’s peak export capacity of around 2 million bpd.
Bonny Light exports have been under force majeure since March due to a slump in flows to the export terminal.
Pipeline operator Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) declined to comment.
A spokesman for state oil company NNPC did not immediately comment.
Earlier this month, SPDC managing director Osagie Okunbor said two of the country’s most important pipelines were shut due to theft, but he did not name the pipelines.
He added that oil theft, which the state regulator said cost Nigeria $1 billion in revenue during the first quarter of this year, was one of the reasons that Nigeria could not meet its OPEC quota of 1.8 million barrels a day.
(Reporting By Libby George in Lagos and Camillus Eboh in Abuja;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
