ANALYSIS – Nigeria may lose top Africa oil exporter status

LONDON (Reuters) – Nigeria, which has been forced to shut in more than half of its oil output following rebel attacks and a workers’ strike, could lose its position as Africa’s top oil exporter, analysts and trading sources said.

Nigeria’s lifeblood industry, besieged by insurgents fighting to gain control of oil pumped in their backyard and criminals who break into pipelines and steal crude for illegal export, is losing more than half its output at a time when oil prices are at their peak.



The cumulative oil production outage for Africa’s most populous nation now amounts to more than 1.3 million barrels per day from its most recent output of about 2 million bpd.

The loss includes the most recent shut-ins from Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, the top two foreign oil producers in Nigeria.

Exxon has lost 770,000 barrels of its crude oil production, or almost all of its Nigerian output due to a workers’ strike over a labour dispute.

Shell said last week it had shut 169,000 bpd of its production following repeated attacks by rebels in the restive Delta region, where most of Nigeria’s oil is produced. On Monday the rebels claimed Shell’s shut-ins amounted to 350,000 bpd, but Shell in Nigeria was not immediately available to react to that figure.

Analysts said Nigeria risked losing its top oil producer status in Africa to Angola.

Forbes