Awake at the Wheel

CNN reports:

Nigeria is pumping oil at its lowest level in 25 years, following militant rebel attacks on facilities in recent days operated by Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB) and Chevron Corp. (CVX), a senior Nigerian oil official said Sunday.

Nigeria, which has in recent months been overtaken by Angola as Africa’s biggest oil producer, is now estimated to be producing oil at between 1.2 million and 1.5 million barrels a day, the oil official told Dow Jones Newswires, the lowest level since around 1983.

“Things are very bad now in Nigeria,” he said on the sidelines of a major oil summit here between producers and consumers.

The country’s volume of marketable oil held back from such attacks is now between 900,000 and 1 million barrels a day, the official added.

U.S. oil company Chevron Saturday became the second oil major in as many days to confirm that it has been forced to shut in production at a Nigerian oil production facility, after militants attacked a pipeline late Thursday.