Exxon: Nigerian Outage

Exxon Mobil, an American oil and gas corporation, has shut nearly all its Nigerian oil production, suspending in total some 770,000 barrels per day (bpd), due to a happened workers’ strike.

The production stoppage, which makes nearly 40 percent of total output, comes after a series of attacks this month by militants in the Niger Delta, which has shut-in an additional 169,000 bpd from Royal Dutch Shell.

Elsewhere, the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) yesterday claimed its attack on Royal Anglo Dutch Shell’s Kula major trunk line last week cost the company a further 350,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd).

MEND’s spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, said in an e-mail that the April 24 attack on the Kula major trunk line led to a “further disruption of 350,000 bpd, bringing the total shut-in so far to over 500,000bpd from the combined attacks.”

This comes as efforts to resolve the industrial dispute resumes today after yesterday’s negotiation ended in a deadlock. Abubakar Yar’Adua, the group managing director of NNPC, waded into the industrial dispute between Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN) Unlimited and its workers.

John Chaplin, the managing director of MPN, led the management team, while Peter Esele, PENGASSAN president, led the officials and MPN branch leaders, to the meeting.
The problems in Nigeria, the world’s eighth-biggest oil exporter, helped push oil prices to a record high near $120 a barrel yesterday.