Lagos — Despite the relative peace in the troubled Niger Delta due to Federal Government's amnesty granted to militants, Royal Dutch Shell, a major operator in Nigeria oil and gas sector, has continued to count loses from its operation owing to the years of unrest in the region.

The company's Chief Executive, Peter Voser, stated yesterday that the oil giant's onshore output currently stood at 120,000 barrels per day (bpd), from the about 300,000 bpd being produced before the militant activities escalated in the region.

Voser, who assumed duty on July 1, following the retirement of Jeroen van der Veer, said Shell's onshore production in Nigeria had been "heavily curtailed by violence" in the oil-rich region.

"We have a huge proportion of onshore production shut in at this stage. I think we are now at 120,000 bpd and we used to be close to 300,000," Reuters quoted Voser as saying.

Shell had recorded tremendous losses in its crude oil production due to years of unrest in the region.

Reports had it that the company's production had dropped to about 300,000 bpd from nearly 1 million barrels per day in the wake of attacks on its installations and other challenges confronting its business.

Investigations revealed that Nigeria production dropped below 1.3 million bpd due to the crisis, which resulted in massive shut in of production from the Western Niger Delta and Eastern Niger Delta due to prevailing security situation.

Industry sources hinted that as at July last year, production from the deepwater fields of Erha, Bonga, Agbami, and Abo accounted for 516,370 barrels of oil per day (about 40 per cent) of the country's output, while the balance of about 743,630 bpd was produced from a combination of Joint Venture, alternative funding service contract and other production sharing contract arrangements.

However, recent investigations by THISDAY revealed that between 2004 and May this year, Shell's Bonga produced 58,477,728 barrels in 2006, 93,379,177 barrels in 2007, 64,352,763 barrels in 2008 and 16,660,085 in 2009.

It was revealed that Agip's Abo field- produced 3,583,512 barrels in 2004, 10,405,634 barrels in 2005, 9,234,648 barrels in 2006, 5,968,299 barrels in 2007, 6,574,565barrels in 2008 and 2,935,386 barrels in 2009.

Similarly, Mobil's Erha field did 53,407,880 barrels in 2006, 74,922,568 barrels in 2007, 72,362,721 barrels in 2008, and 23,325,664 barrels in 2009, while Chevron's Agbami field, produced 19,293,998 barrels in 2009, having commenced production in July last year.

Total's Akpo field, which commenced production in March 2009, is currently on long production test and no production has yet been ascribed to the operator.

The violence in the Niger Delta region in the last three years had reduced Nigeria's daily output which stood at about 2.6 million barrels per day by about half.

But the Federal Government amnesty to militants in the region in August had pushed oil production to about 1.7 mbpd, the highest in 16 months.

Recently, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, affirmed that Nigeria's daily output had risen and was set to hit 2mbpd, rekindling hopes that the country may achieve its set target of 4 mbpd by 2010.

With Agency Report