Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:17am ET
KUALA LUMPUR, June 11 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s oil production stands at 2.4 million barrels per day and will approach 3 million bpd due to increased production from new deepwater fields, senior oil official Edmund Daukoru said on Sunday.
He also said he remained hopeful that the 550,000 bpd of production shut since February by militant attacks would return to service in a month, although he said operator Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) feared it would take longer to restore output.
“I hope it will be a month, but Shell says it will take a bit longer than that,” Daukoru, Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum, told reporters. Past predictions that production would resume within a matter of weeks have not come to pass.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta launched attacks earlier this year that forced the closure of a quarter of all output from the world’s eighth-largest exporter, helping push oil prices above $70 a barrel. Shell said last week it had yet to send teams to its oilfields.
New output from Nigeria’s largely untapped deepwater regions is compensating for shut-in output, boosting production to 2.4 million bpd, Daukoru said. This is higher than the 2.29 million bpd figure estimated in a Reuters survey of analysts, consultants and industry sources for May, released on Friday [OPEC/O]
“We’re ramping up deepwater production … Deepwater is making up for conventional territory,” he said on the sidelines of the Asia Oil & Gas Conference in Malaysia.
Speaking in Seoul at the start of this week, Daukoru said Nigeria planned to boost its capacity by 1.5 million bpd by the end of 2007, helping meet strong demand growth in Asia and the United States that has fuelled a surge in prices.
Over the past year Nigeria, the biggest oil producer in Africa, has begun pumping oil from a host of new deepwater fields including Royal Dutch Shell’s 225,000 bpd Bonga development and ExxonMobil’s (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 150,000 bpd Erha field.
More developments led by Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) and Chevron (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) are expected to follow over the next two years.
The offshore fields have typically been immune to the kind of militant attacks that have shut production in the Niger Delta, but an unprecedented raid on a rig 40 miles offshore two weeks ago heightened fears about the safety of more remote facilities.
Daukoru, who is also OPEC president this year, said it was premature to predict what action, if any, OPEC would take at its next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 11 in Vienna.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed last week to keep pumping as much oil as their customers want, but at around $70 the price is still in sight of all-time highs.
“The culture now is that volatile world markets means we don’t take huge steps. We will take measured steps and then see what the market reaction is,” Daukoru said.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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