Nigeria militants hit oil pipeline and cut output
Pastor Dale Morgan
Nigeria militants hit oil pipeline and cut output*
Reuters
By Randy Fabi
ABUJA - Unknown attackers blew up a Nigerian crude oil pipeline operated
by U.S. major Chevron late on Thursday, halting some production,
military and security officials said on Saturday.
"An oil pipeline was attacked at 11:30 p.m. Thursday night," said Army
Brigadier-General Wuyep Rintip, head of the Joint Task Force in the
western Delta. "For production to have stopped, this shows the damage
was serious."
Rintip said some 120,000 barrels per day was halted due to the incident.
Chevron officials were not immediately available to comment.
A wave of attacks in the world's eighth largest oil exporter has cut
production by a fifth since early 2006, helping push world oil prices to
record highs.
Thursday's incident came hours after a bold night-time militant attack
on Royal Dutch Shell's main offshore oil facility that cut Nigeria's oil
output by 10 percent.
The rise in violence prompted Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua on
Friday to order the country's armed forces to tighten security in the
Niger Delta.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta , which claimed
responsibility for the attack on Shell's Bonga oilfield, shrugged off
the president's security order as "empty talk" but said it was on a war
footing.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Chevron's pipeline.
A security source told Reuters the pipeline was located in Abiteye,
where community members have attacked oil facilities in the past. In
June 2007, armed youths attacked a Chevron-operated flow station in the
area, forcing the company to shut down around 42,000 bpd of output.
Violence in the Niger Delta stems from a complex set of factors
including poverty, lack of basic services, corruption among government
officials and security forces, resentment toward foreign oil companies,
and political thuggery.
Yar'Adua came into power just over a year ago promising to bring more
security to the Niger Delta region, but the peace process has stalled.
The Nigerian government will hold a long-awaited Niger Delta peace
summit next month. But MEND and another rebel group -- Ijaw Youth
Council -- have said they will not attend because they have lost faith
in the government's peace process.
(Additional reporting by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Catherine Evans)