Royal Dutch Shell has announced it is postponing its “final investment decision” to invest in Nigeria’s Bonga South West deep water. This revelation was made by the Chief Executive Officer of Shell Ben van Beurden.
“We are making substantial changes in the company, reorganising our upstream, and reducing costs and capital investment, as we refocus Shell and respond to lower oil prices. As we have previously indicated, this will include a reduction of some 10,000 staff and direct contractor positions in 2015-16 across both companies,”
“For 2016, we have exited the Bab sour gas project in Abu Dhabi, and are postponing final investment decisions on LNG Canada and Bonga South West in deep-water Nigeria. Operating costs and capital investment have been reduced by a total of $12.5bn as compared to 2014, and we expect further reductions in 2016,”
Shell was supposed to announce its final decision this year after it denied report last February that it had shelved the decision. According to the Punch, the project includes the construction of a new Floating Production, Storage and Offloading facility, with an expected peak production of 225,000 barrels of oil per day.The Bonga project itself, which began producing oil and gas in 2005, is Nigeria’s first deep-water development in water depths over 1,000 metres.
