Chika Amanze-Nwachuku, Ejiofor Alike and Ahamefula Ogbu
22 June 2009
Lagos — Niger Delta militants yesterday continued their offensive against oil and gas facilities in the region, this time targeting oil installations located outside Delta State.
The latest onslaught, highly placed industries sources said, might have reduced the country's crude oil production to about one million barrels per day (bpd), as Nigeria's crude production has declined to below 1.3 million bpd since the renewed violence.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which often claimed responsibility for major attacks, said it attacked two facilities - oil pipelines in River State and a shallow-water offshore field, belonging to Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).
The group had on Friday attacked Agip facilities in Bayelsa State.
These bring to three the number of attacks on the company's installations in less than one week.
A company spokesman, Mr. Precious Okolobo, who confirmed the incident, did not disclose the quantity of crude oil shut in as a result of the attacks, but a top official of the company said some 125,000 bpd might have been affected.
Okolobo said the company had commenced investigation with a view to ascertaining "the impacts on facilities, environment and production".
MEND had threatened to extend its onslaught, tagged "Hurricane Piper Alpha, against neighbouring oil producing states of Bayelsa and Rivers, before shifting to Ondo, Edo and Akwa Ibom.
"After destroying the entire oil infrastructure in Delta State, the hurricane will move into the neighbouring states of Bayelsa and Rivers before passing through the remaining states of Ondo, Edo and Akwa Ibom then finally head offshore," the group had said in an e-mailed statement.
MEND said the attack on the company's pipelines at Adamakiri and Kula, both in Rivers State, early on Sunday was part of its "operation".
MEND tagged its armed campaign against oil and gas infrastructure "Hurricane Piper Alpha" after the North Sea oil platform that blew up in July 1998 - the worst offshore oil disaster in the history of global oil and gas operations.
"Piper Alpha unleashed its fury in Rivers state today... leaving in its wake two battered oil installations," the group said in a statement on Sunday, adding that it had also attacked an offshore Shell oilfield in shallow water between the Bayelsa and Delta States.
The attacks are the first in Rivers State since the group came under superior fire power of the JTF in Delta State on May 13.
Last week, the group attacked Shell's Trans Ramos pipeline at Aghoro-2 community in Bayelsa State, forcing the company to halt some chunks of crude production.
This was followed by an attack on the pipelines of the Italian energy firm Agip, prompting the company to halt production of around 33,000 barrels of oil and 2 million cubic metres of gas per day also in Bayelsa State.
Prior to the renewed attacks on oil facilities in the region, the country was said to have recorded a shut-in of over one million bpd, bringing the country's output to only about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day.
Statistics released by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) about a fortnight ago, showed that production deferment due to the crisis in the oil-rich region was over one million bpd.
The statistics, indicated that both the reserves and the daily output are on the decline due to the restiveness in the Niger Delta, raising fears that the restiveness may deter the country from achieving its set targets of four million bpd and reserves of 40 billion barrels by 2010.
Nigeria has the capacity to produce three million barrels of oil per day, but was producing about 2.6 million barrels before the escalation of violence in the region in 2006. The output had hovered around 2.2 million up to 2008, when production dropped to about 2 million barrels per day.
In MEND's e-mail signed by Jomo Gbomo, the group claimed that they had linked up the families of those they alleged were extra-judicially murdered by members of the JTF whose footage they posted on the internet, adding that those killed were from Opobo.
They also claimed that a soldier leaked the information they needed, pointing out that last of the two died at Teme Clinic in Port Harcourt.
"The murdered men in the You Tube video have been identified as Messrs Boma Green and Stanley Tamunobere Pepple, humble fishermen who come from Bonny Island of Rivers state.
"They were arrested and shot on August 8, 2008 on suspicion of being militant informants by the JTF even when they showed their catch and fishing tools as proof of their profession.
"Both men were shot on the legs to immobilize them before being taken to the Bonny Jetty base of the JTF. It was there that the soldiers sort the services of a camera man to video their 'prized catch'.
"After the shootings caught on tape, we were told Stanley did not die instantly and after appeals from some witnesses that the men are known fishermen were they then allowed to be taken away to the hospital.
"They were rushed in a private car to the Teme Clinic run by Doctors without Borders in Diobu, Port Harcourt where he died few hours later from the injuries inflicted by the gunshot wounds. Medical records are available," they said.
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By showing lack of understanding or shamefully pretending to that the ONLY SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM IS A CHANGE IN THE CONSTITUTION TO ALLOW SEPARATE DEVELOPMENT OF EACH OF THE SIX GEO=POLITICAL DIVISIONS OF NIGERIA, this administration is ruining the lives of the citizens.