The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) said, the Forcados oil terminal will resume export operations by the end of the month ‘when ongoing essential repairs would have been completed.’
“In addition to the repairs, we are working to remove and clamp theft points on the onshore pipelines to ensure full crude oil receipt at the terminal,” SPDC’s media relations manager, Abimbola Essien-Nelson, said in a company statement.
Essien-Nelson outlined in the statement that active illegal connections to the SPDC joint venture’s production lines and facilities in the western Niger Delta, as well as the inactive illegal connection to the onshore section of the 48” Forcados Export Line, are in the company’s ongoing programme to remove illegal connections on the pipelines that feed the terminal.
“SPDC gives priority to the removal of active illegal connections and to illegal connection points that have leaks. This scheduled program is continuous as new illegal connections are identified during surveillance of the pipelines,” Essien-Nelson said.
“An example of such illegal connection is that on the onshore section of the 48” Forcados Export Line which is currently not active and has no sign of leak at the interconnection point,” the SPDC manager added.
The Forcados Oil Pipeline System is the second largest network in the Niger Delta and transports oil, water and associated gas from fields in the western Delta to the Forcados oil terminal, Wood Mackenzie highlights on its website, adding that the terminal has an oil export capacity of 400,000 barrels per day.
SPDC describes itself as the pioneer and leader of the petroleum industry in Nigeria. It has the largest acreage in the country, from which it produces around 39 percent of the nation’s oil, according to its website.
SPDC has more than 3,700 miles of pipelines and flowlines, 87 flowstations, eight gas plants and more than 1,000 producing wells, its site highlights. The company employs more than 4,500 people directly, its site notes.
