Nigerian Militant Group Says It ‘Disabled’ a Shell Pipeline

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- A militant group in Nigeria’s southern oil region said it “disabled” a trunk oil pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, renewing attacks to win local control of oil revenue.

The overnight attack at Obunoma south of the oil industry hub of Port Harcourt cut supplies from oil fields Nembe Creek, Belema, Soku and Ekulama, the Joint Revolutionary Council said in an e-mailed statement today.

Precious Okolobo, Shell spokesman in Nigeria, said the company hasn’t received any report of an attack on its installations as claimed by the group.

Attacks by armed groups in the Niger River delta, which is home to Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, cut more than 25 percent of the country’s oil production between 2006 and 2009. Nigeria, which vies with Angola for Africa’s top oil producer, is the fifth-biggest supplier of U.S. oil imports.

Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni SpA operate joint ventures for the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. in the region.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main armed group in the region, said on Jan. 30 it called off a three-month “indefinite cease-fire” and would resume attacks on the country’s oil industry. MEND, as the group is known, said the government’s refusal to consider the region’s demand for “the control of its resources and land” dashed hopes the cease-fire will lead to genuine peace.



Attacks Rise



Attacks on the oil industry, including sabotage of pipelines and abduction of oil workers, is on the rise again in the region after a lull which followed President Umaru Yar’Adua’s amnesty program that saw thousands of fighters disarm last year.

Yar’Adua hasn’t appeared in public since Nov. 23, when his personal physician said that he had been flown to Saudi Arabia for treatment of a heart ailment. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has been unable to exercise full presidential powers because Yar’Adua hasn’t formally handed over authority to him.

In Yar’Adua’s absence, militant leaders say, government pledges to rehabilitate fighters and address their demands for more local control of the region’s oil wealth haven’t been met.