Chevron pipeline attacked in Nigeria
Nigeria’s main rebel armed group in the restive oil producing Nigeri Delta on Saturday said it had a hand in an attack on a Chevron crude oil pipeline which forced a shut in of 20,000 barrels a day.
“This attack was sanctioned by MEND but did not involve our fighters,” the leading militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement. The attack on Friday took place at Makaraba about 100 kilometres (60 miles) southwest of Warri, one of the main cities of Delta State.
Chevron spokesman Scott Walker confirmed the attack, telling AFP: “Chevron Nigeria Limited … confirms that there was a breach on its Makaraba-Utonana pipeline in Delta State, Nigeria on Friday, January 8, 2010.” The sabotage led “to a shut in of production of about 20,000 (bpd) from the Makaraba and Utonana platforms to protect the environment,” said Walker from Houston, Texas. Violence had subsided in the months after an amnesty offer declared by the government of President Umaru Yar’Adua in July last year.
The attack is the second known following the laying down of arms by thousands of militants in the delta under the government’s unconditional pardon. Armed groups claiming to seek a fairer share of oil revenue for local communities — had since 2006 staged attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta playing havoc with output and international oil prices. “The attack exposes the continued vulnerability of the oil industry infrastructure and the resolve of the people of the Niger Delta to fight for their land,”
MEND said in an email statement signed by its spokesman Jomo Gbomo. At the peak of the unrest Nigeria, the world’s eighth largest exporter of crude, saw its output slashed by a third. But a government amnesty deal declared mid 2008 had seen a lull in attacks and a rise in Nigeria’s oil output to around two million barrels per day, according to government statistics. ref:AFP
