Royal Dutch Shell Plc has halted crude shipments from Nigeria’s Forcados export terminal in Delta State, according to Bloomberg, TheCable reports.
Also, a separate letter by the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) announced disruption of gas supply to power plants in the western axis due to issues with the Trans-Forcados Pipeline (TFP).
Shell Petroleum Development Co. of Nigeria Ltd issued a temporary notice of force majeure on Forcados shipments from 21st December, 2021. More than 200,000 barrels a day of crude oil flows through the terminal.
The shutdown comes just a month after Shell said it was restoring flows from the nearby Bonny facility in Rivers State.
Force majeure is a clause that allows companies to skip contractual obligations following issues outside of their control.
According to the report, the stoppage occurred during replacement of one of the two single point moorings at Forcados, with the positioning of a jack-up barge preventing tanker access, export operations and resumption of full production into the terminal, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd said in a notice.
The presence of the jack-up offshore support vessel Seacor Strength at the Forcados moorings was confirmed by ship tracking data monitored by Bloomberg.
Neither NNPC nor Shell gave an indication of the likely duration of the stoppage. The force majeure may affect four ships scheduled to load this month, according to a port agent report seen by Bloomberg.
Since Shell announced the month-long force majeure at the Bonny site in October, only one ship has loaded a cargo from that terminal.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) in the letter to power plants operators on 20th December 2021, said due to the breach on the Trans-Forcados Pipeline (TFP), supply to the western axis was affected.
NGC had issued the notice of gas curtailment due to Abysmal System Pressure Levels that must be managed to avoid collapse of the gas grid.
The TFP was breached on December 17, 2021 and has also impacted SEPLAT’s production and other producers. Chevron Nigeria Ltd (CNL) also lost a compressor because of technical issues, said NGC. Due to these issues, the letter from NGC seen by Daily Trust on Saturday stated that there is a deferment and unavailability of gas to off-takers, of about 250 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd) of gas from the pipeline network.
It was learnt that five power plants operated by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) comprising Olorunsogo, Omotosho, Sapele, Ihovbor and Geregu have been affected by the gas shortage.
While Omotosho has shut down, Geregu and Ihovbor are getting less gas supply.
