Warri — SUSPECTED gangsters, reportedly working for some oil bunkers, whose barges containing stolen crude oil were seized by the Joint Task Force on the Niger-Delta in the past two months in Delta State, yesterday, blew up the Escravos crude oil pipeline, between an Ijaw community of Yokri in Ogulagha kingdom and Ogidigben, an Itsekiri riverside community in Warri South-West local government area of the state.

The oil pipeline is believed to be operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), which has reportedly shut down its North Bank and South Bank operations, including the crude oil line to the Forcados Terminal.

Details of the bombing were still very hazy, yesterday, as the coordinator of the Joint Media Campaign Centre of JTF, Colonel Rabe Abubakar, told Vanguard that nothing like that happened. Also an official of SPDC contacted on phone said he was not aware of the attack.

However, SPDC Media Adviser, Mr. Tony Okonedo and spokesman, Precious Okolobo told Vanguard when contacted, yesterday, "We are investigating reports of a possible incident on one of our pipelines in Western operations, and cannot comment just yet".

But a security source told Vanguard that the Delta Waterways and Security Committee (DWSC), an agency set up by the Delta State government to provide intelligence information to security agencies and generally maintain peace in the waterways of the state, have swung into action by dispatching officials to the area to find out what happened.

Information gathered by Vanguard indicated that the oil thieves recruited the gangsters to bomb the crude oil pipeline in fulfilment of their earlier threat to destroy oil facilities if their barges impounded by the task force were not released.

The JTF had before now, stated that it would not release the barges to the oil thieves.

A reliable source, however, queried, "How can anybody in his right senses think that the JTF will release barges that were impounded from oil bunkers back to them, is it for them to use it to continue with their economic sabotage or what. I think the right thing for them to do should be to destroy the barges.

So, anybody wanting to force the task force to release the barges to the oil bunkers is joking".