ABERDEEN-based Eland Oil & Gas has restarted production from a well in Nigeria where operations were disrupted amid security challenges.

The Aim-listed firm said it has started pumping oil from the Opuama-1 well again after a 15-month suspension.

The well had been taken offline in February last year following sabotage on the processing terminal through which oil from the Opuama field was sent to market.

Eland resorted to using ships to ferry oil from the Opuama 3 well to market.

The company announced last week that it had completed exporting crude through shipping and had started transportation to its pre-existing export facility, assumed to be Forcados.

The company said yesterday the shipping operation had involved ferrying nearly 520,000 barrels of crude to a terminal off Nigeria.

Eland is producing over 11,500 barrels oil daily from Opuama, compared with 8,500 bod before Opuama 1 came back into production.

It said increased sales of crude would allow further development of the OML 40 license, which contains the Opuama field.

Following recent studies Eland is confident it could find and develop more big fields on the OML 40 licence.

The company reckons the undeveloped discoveries and potential finds may contain up to 1.8 billion barrels oil.

It has a minority stake in OML 40 through the Elcrest joint venture.