MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shell lifted a force majeure on exports of Nigeria’s Forcados crude oil after the pipeline transporting it reopened, reported Reuters with reference to the company's statement.
The removal of force majeure followed the reopening of the Trans Forcados pipeline by operator Heritage Energy Operational Services Limited, a spokeswoman for the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria said on Monday.
The pipeline was shut down on April 4, Shell said in a previous statement. It declared force majeure on April 6.
Forcados exports were set at roughly 245,000 barrels per day (bpd) in May and 283,000 bpd in April.
As MRC wrote previously, a contractor working at Shell's Pulau Bukom manufacturing site in Singapore has contracted the new coronavirus. The Bukom manufacturing site in Singapore houses Shell's biggest wholly-owned refinery. The company said earlier it had sent some staff home from its main office at Metropolis in western Singapore after discovering another employee had been in contact with a carrier.
We also remind that Shell Singapore restarted its naphtha cracker in Bukom Island in early December, 2019, following a two months maintenance shutdown since the beginning of October 2019. Thus, this cracker was taken off-stream for the turnaround on 1 October 2019. The cracker is able to produce 960,000 tons/year of ethylene and 550,000 tons/year of propylene.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 383,760 tonnes in the first two month of 2020, up by 14% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments increased due to the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 192,760 tonnes in January-February 2020, down by 6% year on year. Homopolymer PP accounted for the main decrease in imports.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
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