Royal Dutch Shell has declared force majeure on production of crude oil on two of Nigeria’s main pipelines, resulting from damage caused by oil thieves.

The force majeure announcement affects exports of Bonny and Forcados crudes, which account for more than one fifth of the country’s oil output.

“Bonny loadings are affected as result of production deferment caused by the fire incident on a bunkering ship on the Bomu-Bonny trunkline and production deferment from a third party producer because of flooding,” Reuters reports a company spokesman as saying.

Forcados exports are thought to be affected by damage caused by theft attempts on the Trans Forcados and Brass Creek trunklines.

Together, the two crudes account for an output of 427,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), out of an estimated 2,048,000 bpd production across the whole country.

The company is working on repairing the damage to the pipelines, including damage caused on the Bomu-Bonny trunkline earlier this month; when thieves set fire to the pipeline in an attempt to siphon off oil.

It is estimated that 180,000 barrels of oil are stolen from Nigeria’s pipelines on a daily basis.  In a statement on Monday, former presidential candidate Dele Cole revealed that most of this stolen oil is sold on the global market, with main buyers being located in the Balkan countries – in particular the Ukraine, Serbia and Bulgaria – and Singapore.

Cole told Reuters: “On the evidence we have, the Balkan mafia organisations are well represented in Nigeria … You can’t chase these guys easily. They’re as slippery as the proverbial eel.”

He went on to explain that only 10 per cent of stolen oil is refined by local gangs in Nigeria.  However, he also accused the country’s politicians of colluding in large-scale oil-theft for sales on the world-wide market, saying: “International theft is diverting huge quantities … and the sophistication of the exercise — from breaching the pipeline, to having barges, to knowing when ships are at the port, to being paid — is major.”

Cole added: “It’s been a problem for a long time, but when it was 50,000 barrels,people thought was tolerable. Now we’re at a totally different level.”

Cole is a passionate campaigner to end the global trade in stolen oil from Africa’s largest oil producer, and on Monday launched a new anti-theft campaign.

With oil production accounting for 95 percent of the Nigerian government’s revenue, it is vital that the country gets a grip on the illegal siphoning of oil from pipelines.