By Chibisi Ohakah, Umuahia
There are fears that Nigeria’s crude oil revenue may be adversely affected with the force majeure issued by Royal Dutch Shell Plc on crude shipments from the country’s Forcados export terminal, even as Nigeria battles with falling oil production in recent times.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that the force majeure from Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) on Forcados shipments, took effect from midday on Tuesday, and planned to issue a revised off-take programme in due course.
Force majeure is a clause that allows companies to skip contractual obligations following issues outside of their control. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 barrels per day of Nigerian crude normally pass through the terminal, according to the report.
According to the report, neither NNPC nor Shell gave an indication of the likely duration of the stoppage.
The shutdown comes just a month after Shell said it was restoring flows from the nearby Bonny facility. 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, NNPC was quoted as saying 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.
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