Shell Restarts Oil Station After Protesta

Royal Dutch Shell said on Friday it had resumed production from one of its crude oil flow stations in the onshore Niger Delta which was shut down by protesting Nigerian youths earlier last month.

Shell gave no details on the amount of production that was lost during the outage which occurred at a manifold installation in Kolo Creek, one of the huge oilfields which spread across the labyrinthine wetlands region.

Industry sources said the Kolo Creek oilfield produces around 25,000 barrels per day (bpd), which feeds out to Shell’s Bonny export terminal.

“Some production had been shut since July 14 and was only partially restored since then. Normal operations are ongoing since yesterday,” a Shell spokesperson told Reuters on Friday.

Youths broke into the flow station on July 14 in protest at what they said was the Anglo-Dutch firm’s failure to provide their communities with electricity.

Shell said it had been delivering electricity to the region in line with an agreement in 1999 but the communities had grown and demand for power exceeded its installed capacity but they were working on expanding power output.

The oil giant has been the target of sabotage attacks and protests for decades from communities who feel foreign oil companies have grown rich from the oil reserves under their feet, while they continue to live in poverty.

Shell says the four main states in the Niger Delta receive around $1 billion of oil revenue a year from the Nigerian government. Corruption has been one of the barriers to turning that revenue into benefits for communities.

Shell says its joint venture production partnership, which includes France’s Total and Italian energy firm Eni, paid N535 million ($3,564,290) to the Kolo Creek development projects between 2006 and 2010.