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To: Efthymios H. Zacharias who wrote (34369)	11/6/2000 9:12:46 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Nigerian unrest cancels latest OPEC quota hike: LAGOS, Nov 6 ( Reuters ) Royal Dutch/Shell said on Monday it had declared force majeure at its 475,000 barrels per day Bonny Terminal in southeastern Nigeria because of community unrest in the area. Nigerian oil analysts said the Shell losses could effectively wipe out OPEC's 500,000 bpd brought to market last month under the cartel's mechanism for balancing output and world oil prices. A Shell spokesman told Reuters in Lagos that the force majeure would last through the rest of November. The force majeure affects all November cargoes commencing from November 6 to November 30, the spokesman said. Oil traders said the setback could lead to three to nine day delays in the November loading schedule for Bonny Light and that some cargoes in the November programme could be deffered into December. The spokesman said Shell had informed its joint venture partners, led by state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp and including TotalFinaElf TOTF.PA and Agip ENI.MI. "A series of community unrests and illegal bunkering ( tapping of crude oil ) forced closures of some of our flow stations last week," the spokesman said. "As at that time ( last week ) we were losing 250,000 bpd, although the figure must have gone down because some of the facilities have been reopened," he added. He named some of the affected flow stations as Ekulama, Nembe Creek and Odiama all feeding into Bonny Terminal, located off the oil city of Port Harcourt. The precise nature of the community unrest was not immediately clear. In recent times Shell, Nigeria's biggest oil producer, has been hit by militant communities in the volatile Niger Delta region demanding a greater share of oil weatlh. Oil production facilities have been targets of attacks by villagers demanding compensations before repairs are carried out. But the spokesman said the rising cases of illegal bunkering of crude oil was now a disturbing phenomenon for oil companies. "Illegal bunkering before now was associated with refined oil products. But crude oil bunkering is a new phenomenon and very disturbing," he said. Last month, Shell shut in about 60,000 bpd of oil for some days after suspected illegal bunkerers damaged an oil pipeline which led to a spill and subsequent closure of its facilities in southern Delta State. Earlier in July the oil giant shut in a total of 90,000 bpd for more than one week after a pipeline fire triggered by illegal bunkerers forced it to shut three oil flow stations.