Nigeria’s crude oil export has suffered a major setback as Shell Petroleum Develop-ment Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC) declared force majeure on Bonny Light exports for the remainder of August as well as September and October, 2011. Force majeure is a declaration which frees the oil giant from all contractual obligations to its customers due to unforeseen circumstances. This development came few weeks after the oil giant lifted force majeure on Bonny Light crude, which it declared on June 13 for the remainder of June and July 2011. With this force majeure, Nigeria’s total production capacity, including condensate, which stood at about 2.6 million of crude oil barrels per day, has declined to about 2.3million bpd. Bonny crude is a light, low sulphur grade used by the United States East Coast refiners to produce petroleum products. Shell did not officially disclose the volume of crude affected by the force majeure, which took effect from August 23, 2011, but a company source said the volume of exports affected is in excess of 300,000bpd. The United States East Coast, a major importer of the grade, imported 322,000 barrels per day of Bonny Light from Nigeria in March, 2011. This figure represented about 32 per cent of total imports to the region, according to a recent data by the US Energy Department. Also Shell’s earlier loading schedules showed that 10 cargoes of Bonny Light of about 950,000 barrels each were shipped in May 2011, totalling over 300,000 barrels of crude per day. But the company later planned to revise the exports for June and July to eight and nine cargoes, respectively, translating to over 250, 000bpd, due to the operational problems it was said to have experienced at the 400,000 barrels-per- day-capacity Bonny Export Terminal. Confirming the latest action, Shell’s Corporate Media Relations Manager, Mr. Tony Okonedo, said in a statement yesterday that the declaration of the force majeure followed what the company called “production deferment from several pipeline incidents in Eastern operations.” “In one instance, SPDC recorded six separate oil spill incidents on the Okordia-Rumuekpe trunk line at Ikarama in Bayelsa State, between August 2 and 15 this year, all from hacksaw cuts by unknown persons. On August 21, another three hacksaw cuts were reported on the nearby Adibawa delivery line. Some production is shut in while SPDC repairs the line,” he said. The force majeure it declared earlier on June 13, 2011 was due to “production cutbacks” caused by leaks and fires on the company’s Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP). Joint investigation visits comprising government agencies, communities and SPDC found that the incidents were caused by hacksaw cuts which indicate third party interference and activities of unknown persons. The TNP which transports crude oil production from SPDC and third parties in its Eastern operations to Bonny ExportTerminal, was affected by leaks and five separate fire incidents on both the 24-inch and 28-inch lines in Bodo, Bera, Biera and Mogho all in Ogoni land, on June 9, 2011. SPDC immediately shut the lines, mobilised its pipelines response and fire fighting teams and extinguished the fires by June 11. Shell’s Vice President in charge of Health, Safety, Environment (HSE), Infrastructure & Logistics in Shell Sub Saharan Africa, Mr. Babs Omotowa, had stated that the leaks and fires were indication of a worrying trend not only on the TNP but also on the company’s facilities in other places. “Sadly, the trend is continuing unabated. At end April, we recorded more than 35 sabotage spills. SPDC is continuing to upgrade facilities, replace pipelines and improve oil spill response systems. But no matter how much we improve our performance, until the activities of oil thieves and illegal refiners are brought to an end, the vast majority of oil spills in the Niger Delta will continue,” he said.