ABUJA (Reuters) - Shell shut its Imo River oil pipeline in Nigeria on October 31 due to damage caused by thieves and deferred 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) of production, the company's local unit said on Sunday.
This latest outage will add to a growing list of production problems for Africa's biggest oil exporter.Nigeria's worst flooding in 50 years contributed to Shell and Eni declaring force majeure on major crude oil grades in recent weeks. This means they cannot keep to contract agreements due to problems out of the company's control.
U.S. oil major Exxon said on Saturday it had shut a pipeline off the coast of Nigeria's Akwa Ibom state after an oil leak but it didn't say what the cause of the spill was or how much output was affected.
"(Shell) shut down the Imo River Trunkline in its eastern operations after it found several crude theft points on the facility," an emailed statement from Shell's Nigerian arm

"Some six crude theft points have so far been confirmed on the 12-inch trunkline, of which three have been repaired."
Shell said two crude oil theft valves had also been attached to its Trans-Niger Pipeline on Sunday but these had been closed off and the pipeline was being reopened.
Oil spills

Crude theft is a growing problem in Nigeria and oil companies

But much gets transported into international markets as part of criminal networks, oil industry sources say.
Oil spills have a devastating environmental impact, destroying fishing

Shell said there had been 26 spills in the Imo River area so far this year alone, spilling 3,000 barrels of oil.
(Reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Susan Fenton and Elaine Hardcastle)
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