"We are delighted to be exporting crude from Bonga, following the start-up of production on November 25 2005," the statement quoted Chima Ibeneche, managing director of the Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Co., a subsidiary of Shell in Nigeria, as saying. "It is a technological triumph that Shell is successfully producing oil and gas from Nigeria's deepwater frontier and we have capped that achievement with today's first shipment," Ibeneche said. According to the statement, the 200,000 barrels of crude were exported onboard the vessel, ARION, on December 29 last year. "The landmark shipment from Nigeria's first deepwater oil discovery involved the pressurized transfer of crude from the Bonga Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel via a nearly two and a half km long dynamic flexible pipe, to the offshore loading buoy and onto the ocean going tanker," it said. Shell emphasized it is significant that shipment was achieved using Bonga's offshore loading buoy, the world's first, largest and most technologically advanced polyester moored deepwater buoy,which was built in Nigeria by an indigenous firm, Nigerdock. Oil production at the Bonga facility, whose target nameplate output is 225,000 barrels of oil and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, is expected to ramp up to some 200,000 barrels per day in 2006. The development cost to first oil for the 60 sq km Bonga, situated in water depths of more than 1000 meters, is some 3.6 billion U.S. dollars. Nigeria, the eighth largest oil producer in the world, possesses the most proved oil reserves in Africa and is also the most prolific producer on the continent with a daily output of some 2.5 million barrels. PIN/XINHUA