Nigeria’s Oil Revenue and Output at Risk as ExxonMobil Declares Force Majeure

Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, an ExxonMobil affiliate, has declared force majeure after equipment damage at the floating buoy serving the Erha FPSO export facility.

The Erha deepwater field sits on OML 133 roughly 100 kilometres offshore in the western Niger Delta and produces around 200,000 barrels per day, making it one of the country’s largest and most strategic deepwater assets. The company has notified stakeholders and promised updates but declined to estimate when exports will resume.

The outage threatens Nigeria’s 2026 production targets, crude export earnings and foreign exchange inflows, with knock-on implications for budget implementation. Analysts warn that a prolonged shutdown could erode recent production gains and dent investor confidence in the upstream sector, coming as the industry works to recover from years of oil theft, pipeline vandalism and underinvestment.

Source: The Sun