Forbes/AFX News Limited: Shell still losing 15,000 barrels/day after Nigeria pipeline explosion: Posted Thursday 29 December 2005
LAGOS (AFX) - Royal Dutch Shell said that while pumping has resumed after the pipeline explosion in southern Nigeria last week, the company is still losing 15,000 barrels a day and can not yet guarantee to honour commitments.
The comments came as news broke that, barely a week later, unidentified vandals have set fire to a petroleum products pipeline in Adeje community, near Nigeria's southern oil city of Warri, a senior security official told AFP.
'Unknown vandals on Tuesday set fire to the pipeline of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC). The effect of the fire is very extensive and we are doing everything possible to mitigate it,' said the official, who spoke on the telephone on condition of anonymity.
PPMC is an affiliate of state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
At Shell's Niger Delta pipeline, limited production began Saturday in the affected area, but the company maintained a state of force majeure, a measure allowing oil firms to breach their supply contracts in very serious situations.
The cause of the blast has not been determined but investigators suspect the pipeline was deliberately blown up with dynamite.
afp/slm
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