Shell Nigeria Output Hits Five-Year High

• Shell Nigeria Output Hits Five-Year High

Global oil Giant, Royal Dutch Shell, on Thursday announced that its total oil production in Nigeria grew to a five-year high in 2019 at 176,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

In the company’s fourth quarter report released on Thursday, Shell’s profit declined by 23 percent from $21.4 billion recorded in 2018 to $16.5 billion in 2019, largely due to unstable global oil prices.

The company’s profit had rose by 36 percent from $16.18 billion in 2017 to $21.4 billion in 2018 when OPEC+ were able to curtail falling oil prices through production cap.

Shell’s total production in the country stood at 161,000 boepd as at 2018, up from 159,000 boepd in 2017. However, the company’s liquid production available in Nigeria increased from 47,000 barrels per dayd in 2017 and 51,000 bpd in 2018 to 65,000 barrels per day in 2019.

Gas production available for sale in Nigeria rose to 642 million standard cubic feet per day from 632 million scfpd in 2018 and 647 million scfpd in 2017.

Shell reported a drop in profit from $5.7 billon announced in the final quarter of 2018 to $2.9 billion in the final quarter of 2019.

Lower oil prices, decommissioning costs and write-offs related to its business in Albania plunged the company’s revenue from exploration and production by $787 million when compared with a profit of $1.6 billion generated the same quarter ago.

Ben van Beurden, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, said Shell faced “challenging macroeconomic conditions” in its petroleum refining and chemicals business, “as well as lower oil and gas prices” last year.