ExxonMobil has completed assessment of the damage to the Crude Loading line (CDL) to its Qua Iboe Export Facility, in Nigeria, and concluded it will take no less than 14 weeks to repair.
The facility was damaged by militants with military grade dynamite in mid July 2016 and there had been a battle of wits between the company and the Niger Delta Avengers.
ExxonMobil had declared a force majeure, based on observation of a “system anomaly” during a routine check of its loading facility on July 14, 2016. The company claimed there was no connection between the force majeure and militant attacks.
The Avengers had insisted it had attacked the facility.
With the completion of investigation, ExxonMobil has moved to suspend all service contracts and started to work on other areas of cost cutting, including reduction of permanent staff, to weather the looming dry season.
Part of the reason that the damage will exert much economic toll is that the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, like other majors, is struggling not to drown in red. For the first half of 2016, ExxonMobil announced upstream earnings of $218Million, down $4.7Billion from the first half of 2015. The Qua Iboe Terminal exports at least 500,000BOPD of crude. Local companies which export through the facility include Network E&P, Universal E&P and Frontier Oil.
