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By Julia Payne
LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Nigeria's oil production hasfallen by at least 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) since amilitant attack forced the closure of the major Trans ForcadosPipeline (TFP) on Wednesday, industry sources said.
The attack pushes the west African country's output backbelow 2 million bpd.
Nigeria's oil minister said on Tuesday that overallproduction had recovered to around 2.1 million bpd followingmonths of attacks, mainly by the Niger Delta Avengers, onvarious oil installations that had cut output by over 600,000bpd.
Local oil company Shoreline said its 35,000 bpd of outputwas shut as a result of the pipeline closure. Several otherlocal producers link up to the TFP including London and Lagoslisted Seplat.
Exports of Forcados that only just resumed in October areexpected to continue at a reduced rate. Force majeure wasimposed earlier this year after an attack on a sub-sea pipelinein February and had not yet been lifted.
The TFP is the main contributor to the Forcados stream.Another 100,000 bpd or so of production by oil major Shell'slocal arm SPDC was still flowing to the terminal through otherpipelines, one of the sources familiar with the matter said.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari met with leaders of thesouthern oil-producing Niger Delta region for the first timethis week in a bid to negotiate an end to the new wave ofmilitancy that began early this year.
The region's population has felt disenfranchised for decadesas it has benefited little from Nigeria's vast oil wealth andhas watched traditional livelihoods such as fishing decline dueto pollution.
A previous wave of militancy ended with an amnesty in 2009. (Reporting By Julia Payne; Editing by Susan Fenton andAlexandra Hudson)
