Shell halts loading of Nigeria’s Forcados crude oil

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has suspended loadings of Nigeria’s Forcados crude oil due to a potential leak at the export terminal.

This is according to a Reuters report. Shell has temporarily stopped loading Nigeria’s Forcados crude oil due to a suspected leak at the export terminal.

“We can confirm that injections into the Forcados Oil Terminal were curtailed on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, following the report of some sheen in the mooring vicinity,” the company said.

According to the report, workers observed a sheen near the single-buoy mooring facility on Wednesday, prompting the suspension of activities in order to conduct investigations.

The Forcados crude oil terminal had the highest crude oil output in June 2023 among the seven major crude terminals in the country, according to data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

Since the beginning of the year, crude oil production at the Forcados terminal has varied between 5 and 7 million barrels per day, with modest declines in March and April 2023.

The Forcados terminal in Delta state boosted crude oil and condensate output to 7.01 million barrels of oil per day (mbpd) in May 2023, up from 5.78 mbpd in April 2023.

Data gleaned from reports by the upstream regulator revealed Nigeria produced 1.25 mbpd in June 2023, as well as 55,088 blended and 176,030 unblended condensates.

For the highlighted time, these data totaled 1.48 mbpd crude production. Last month, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)-13 output of oil saw only a slight decrease.

This was mostly due to Nigeria and Iraq minimising the impact of other countries’ output cuts.