Exports of Nigeria's Forcados crude oil is unlikely to resume until early 2017 due to militant attacks.

The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation reduced the official selling price (OSP) of Nigeria’s crude oil grades as parts of a strategy to make Nigerian crude attractive to buyers and to help it regain its share of the global crude oil market.

According to a report by the Energy International Administration, the statistical arm of the United States’ Energy Department, Nigeria’s crude oil production is expected to remain depressed through 2017 as a result of militant attacks.

US oil giant ExxonMobil plans to export Qua Iboe crude oil through a secondary pipeline while it repairs damaged of the main line sustained in July.

Royal Dutch Shell, the largest oil producing company in Nigeria, which has suffered series of attacks on its 48-inch Forcados export pipeline that links onshore storage tanks with an offshore port, has ruled out the repair of the pipeline for now.

The repair works on the pipeline feeding Nigeria's Forcados crude oil to the export terminal are expected to continue until June. The grade has been under force majeure since mid February, a week after a pipeline leak forced a halt to loadings to the export platform.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it recorded around $121.63m loss in February, when gas supply decline of 70mscf/d to power plants due to vandalism of the Forcados export line.