18 May 2013 – Nigeria LNG has declared force majeure on its liquefied natural gas exports from at Bonny Island a day after Shell halted its supplies to the Bonny Island facility over a reported leak.
Shell’s Nigerian arm Shell Petroleum Development Company said on Thursday it was stopping gas supplies to the 22 million tonne-a-year terminal because of a leak along the Eastern Gas Gathering System near Awoba in Rivers State.
Around 1.5 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day has been shut in as a result of the stoppage, SPDC said.
Shell said it was still able to export between 100 million and 200 million standard cubic feet per day from Soku via the GTS1 line to Nigeria LNG for a limited time.
The force majeure comes barely a month after the last such move halting supplies to the plant was lifted on 18 April after a hiatus of more than two months.
On 5 February, a force majeure was activated after a leak on a major gas trunkline that was later repaired.
SPDC said that a joint investigation visit to the location of that leak had shown that “it was caused by sabotage, unknown persons having drilled a hole on the line”.
Some 144,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in joint venture production was deferred over the shut-in period.
The Anglo-Dutch major did not state a cause for the latest leak, a frequent occurrence at its Nigerian facilities often put down to theft or sabotage.
*Bill Lehane, Upstreamonline
