• Nigeria will temporarily cut oil export volumes by about 225,000 barrels per day due to maintenance at the Bonga offshore field.
• Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company expects to resume production in March after completing work on the FPSO.
• Authorities aim to lift national output to 2 million barrels per day by 2027, supported by new offshore incentives.

Nigeria will face a temporary reduction in oil export volumes of about 225,000 barrels per day for several weeks. Local media reported the development on Monday, February 2, and linked it to scheduled maintenance on the floating production, storage, and offloading unit operating the offshore Bonga field.

“This planned maintenance aims to reduce unplanned outages, improve operational efficiency, and strengthen the overall resilience of the asset,” said Ronald Adams, managing director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Ltd (SNEPCo), the site operator.

“We expect to resume production in March once the maintenance work is successfully completed,” he added, noting that the operation also affects associated natural gas production estimated at about 150 million cubic feet per day.

Bonga, a Major Deepwater Offshore Project

Developers built the Bonga field in offshore block OML 118. The project includes several producing wells connected by subsea pipelines and equipment installed at depths exceeding 1,000 metres, according to technical data.

The Bonga FPSO can store up to two million barrels of crude before loading onto shuttle tankers for export. Operators export crude directly from the offshore site without routing volumes through onshore facilities.

An adjacent oil development known as Bonga South West-Aparo is expected to follow after more than a decade of uncertainty. In mid-January 2026, Agence Ecofin reported that operator SNEPCo relaunched a tender for the supply of an FPSO for the project, targeting production capacity of about 150,000 barrels per day once developed.

Toward the end of January, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu approved targeted investment-related incentives to accelerate the deepwater offshore project located about 120 kilometres off the coast. The presidency said the measures do not constitute broad sector-wide incentives and apply only to new investments that deliver effective production increases.

Authorities have said they want the project to reach a final investment decision by mid-2027. In recent months, officials have repeatedly reaffirmed their ambition to raise national production to 2 million barrels per day by 2027, compared with average crude oil and condensate output of 1.64 million barrels per day over the first eleven months of 2025, according to official data. The government has also eased financial terms in a licensing round launched in early December 2025 covering 50 oil and gas blocks.

This article was initially published in French by Abdel-Latif Boureima

Adapted in English by Ange J.A de BERRY QUENUM