MOSCOW (MRC) -- Gunmen killed a police officer and six employees of a Nigerian oil and gas services contractor during an attack on buses transporting workers to a Shell project site in the southeastern state of Imo, reported Reuters with reference to police's statement.
Attacks on oil and gas facilities have long been a problem in Nigeria, where the multi-billion dollar industry sits alongside impoverished communities that have seen little benefit from it. In this case, the motive was unclear.
The Nigerian arm of Shell, SPDC, confirmed that unknown gunmen had attacked a convoy of buses taking staff of its contractor, Lee Engineering, to its Assa North Gas development project site in the Ohaji area of Imo State on Monday morning.
"We have since shut down the project site while the incident has been reported to the police for investigation. SPDC is working with the contractor and supporting the police through a thorough investigation of the incident and to prevent a recurrence," it said in a statement.
Imo State police spokesman Michael Abattam said efforts were ongoing to arrest the perpetrators.
The company is involved in the installation and construction of a gas primary treatment facility and the supply of a gas turbine generators and a waste heat recovery system, according to its website.
The oil and gas industry, located in the Niger Delta in the south of the country and offshore in the Gulf of Guinea, has been a focal point for violence for several decades. The region has a history of kidnappings, inter-communal conflicts, armed insurgency, piracy and oil smuggling.
As MRC informed earlier, Loadings of Nigeria's key crude grade Forcados are on force majeure due to some operational issues at the export terminal, according to Shell's statement Aug. 16. Force majeure was declared effective Aug. 13 due to "the curtailment of production and suspension of export operations as a result of some sheen noticed on the water around the loading buoy," Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd. said in a statement.
We remind that Royal Dutch Shell plans to reduce its refining and chemicals portfolio by more than half, it said in July 2020 without giving a precise timeframe. The move is part of the Anglo-Dutch company's plan to shrink its oil and gas business and expand its renewables and power division to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply by 2050.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
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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