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Nigeria: Shell Loses 30,000bpd to Militancy
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This Day (Lagos)
10 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Ahamefula Ogbu
Port Harcourt
The barrage of attacks on facilities of Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in the Niger Delta has resulted in an average daily loss of 30,000 barrels valued at N409 million.
Speaking yesterday in a parley with newsmen, SPDC's Pipeline Asset Manager, Mr. Chidi Izuwah further disclosed that the attacks have resulted in a spill of over 35,000 barrels of crude oil into the environment.
He said that while Shell has for safety reasons deferred 170,000 barrels per day, the company has also cut the gas supply to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company at Bonny from 1 million cubic feet to 500,000 cubit feet.
According to Izuwah, the effect of the attacks on their pipelines was not only the loss of production and revenue but that of the effect of the spills on the environment and appealed to the government to do something about the poor rural folks who resort to illegal bunkering to make a living.
He was of the opinion that there was a clique with specialised skills in illegal oil bunkering whom the government must tackle as a matter of urgency through the provision of effective surveillance for the oil and gas pipelines and other facilities in the region.
The Pipelines Asset Manager said a tour of the destroyed facilities showed some live explosives, which they hope to invite the Bomb Disposal Unit of the Police Force to detonate.
So far, he said Shell has tried to contain spills arising from vandalisation, thus preventing a major disaster, adding there was need for deterrence through punishment of those who destroy such national assets.
In a related development, the mother of the Rivers State House of Assembly Majority Leader, Mrs. Fidelia Chioma was yesterday afternoon kidnapped from her school at the Universal Basic Education Primary School, Oromineke Street in D-Line, Port Harcourt where she is a teacher.
She was said to have been taken by six armed men in a Nissan car a few minutes after she came into the school compound which is located in the middle of the town and about 2 kilometres from the Olusegun Obasanjo police station.
When the gunmen entered the class, they allegedly fanned out in search of the woman and dragged her in the full glare of staff and students into their waiting car.
A female teacher in the school said that they were so stunned by the speed and dexterity of the attackers that they could not put up any resistance.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Ireju Barasua confirmed the story though she said the police was yet to get details.
The daughter of the kidnapped woman who is also a grandmother, Hon Golden Ngozi Chioma was due back yesterday from a trip to Australia.
No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnap while no ransom has so far been demanded.
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The family said they were too shocked to say anything yet but wondered what the peaceful woman had done to deserve the trauma of a kidnap.
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