Nigerian militants halt oil war — round-up & reports

21st Sep­tem­ber 2008
Nige­ri­a’s main mil­i­tant group has declared a cease­fire, fol­low­ing a week of attacks on oil instal­la­tions in the coun­try’s oil-rich Niger Delta.

The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (Mend) said it had tak­en the deci­sion after appeals from trib­al lead­ers in the region.

But it warned it would end the truce if attacked by the army again.

Mend declared “war” on Nige­ri­a’s oil indus­try last Sun­day after a fierce mil­i­tary raid on one of its bases.

Mend vowed to “con­tin­ue to nib­ble every day at the oil infra­struc­ture in Nige­ria until the oil exports reach zero”.

“The mil­i­tary and the gov­ern­ment of Nige­ria whose unpro­voked attack on our posi­tion prompt­ed this oil war are no match for a guer­ril­la insur­gency of this kind,” it said in a state­ment.

In the past week, mil­i­tants have attacked gas plants, oil instal­la­tions and pipelines in some of the worst vio­lence for two years. [note main­stream news report lan­guage]

The attacks forced oil giant Shell to declare a force majeure on Sat­ur­day — which frees it from con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions — on crude oil ship­ments from its Niger Delta facil­i­ties.

Nige­ri­a’s oil pro­duc­tion has been cut by 20% because of unrest in the region over the past few years.

——

MEND ”attacks oil facil­i­ties” in response to mil­i­tary offen­sive

Declar­ing an ”oil war” in response to Sat­ur­day’s attacks on its bases by the mil­i­tary, Niger­ian oil region’s largest mil­i­tant group said Sun­day it had car­ried out ”dead­ly attacks” on the oil indus­try in Rivers state.

In a state­ment e‑mailed to the media, the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND) said the attacks, which it tagged ”Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa”, were car­ried out on the Soku Gas Plant, part of Nige­ri­a’s Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas project and the Chevron Plat­form in Kula, among oth­ers.

It also said the MEND fight­ers killed over 22 sol­diers.

React­ing to the claim, the spokesman for the Joint Task Force mil­i­tary unit in Rivers state, Lt.-Col. Sagir Musa, con­firmed the MEND attacks on the facil­i­ties, which he tagged ”flam­boy­ant attacks”, in the ear­ly hours of Sun­day.

Musa said the mil­i­tants met ”active resis­tance from the troops guard­ing the facil­i­ties, ”with casu­al­ty on the mis­cre­ants’ side”.

He said no sol­dier was killed while only one sol­dier was wound­ed, say­ing any infor­ma­tion to the con­trary was ”mis­chie­vous pro­pa­gan­da”.

In its state­ment, MEND said: ”About 0100 Hrs, today, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2008, Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa com­menced with heav­i­ly armed fight­ers in hun­dreds of war boats fil­ing out from dif­fer­ent MEND bases across the Niger Delta in sol­i­dar­i­ty to car­ry out destruc­tive and dead­ly attacks on the oil indus­try in Rivers state.

”By dawn, destroyed oil flow sta­tions, gun boats, burst pipelines, dead and injured sol­diers trailed in the after­math of the ‘hur­ri­cane’. Some spe­cif­ic loca­tions include the Soku Gas Plant, Chevron Plat­form at Kula, over 22 well armed sol­diers sent as rein­force­ment were inter­cept­ed, killed and dis­pos­sessed of their weapons, a major crude trunk pipeline at Nem­be creek was blown up at sev­er­al points,” MEND claimed.

It said the oper­a­tion would con­tin­ue until the gov­ern­ment of Nige­ria ”appre­ci­ates that the solu­tion to peace in the Niger Delta is jus­tice, respect and dia­logue”.

MEND warned all inter­na­tion­al oil and gas load­ing ves­sels enter­ing the region to drop anchor in the high sea or divert else­where until fur­ther notice, say­ing fail­ure to com­ply is ”tak­ing a fool­hardy risk of attack and destruc­tion of the ves­sel”.

It also repeat­ed its call on oil com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the Niger Delta to evac­u­ate their staff from their field facil­i­ties, adding that the brief was not to cap­ture hostages but to bring those struc­tures to the ground.

On Sat­ur­day, MEND said the mil­i­tary launched a mas­sive ‘aer­i­al and marine attacks’ on its bases in the oil region, leav­ing sev­en mil­i­tants dead and sev­er­al oth­ers wound­ed.

It also claimed that some of the 22 oil work­ers tak­en hostage by pirates last week but res­cued by MEND were injured in the fight­ing. The 22 work­ers include 5 expa­tri­ates from Britain, South Africa and Ukraine.

Musa also con­firmed Sat­ur­day’s attacks, which he said were in response to an ear­li­er attack on a mil­i­tary patrol by the mil­i­tants.

——

Shell Facil­i­ty comes under Attack in “Oil War”

MEND, mil­i­tantsOil multi­na­tion­al Shell, has again suf­fered a major set back fol­low­ing an attack in on its oil facil­i­ty in Rivers state—Nigeria’s oil region—by a promi­nent Niger Delta mil­i­tant group, MEND, on Mon­day.

The attack is com­ing a day after the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND) declared “an oil war” in the oil-rich region.

MEND says that the attack is a response to what it describes as unpro­voked aer­i­al and marine attacks by the Niger­ian Army on one of its posi­tion.

Spokesman of the Joint Mil­i­tary Task Force in Rivers State, Lieu­tenant-Colonel Sagir Musa says that the facil­i­ty was attacked and set alight just after mid­night with “dyna­mite and oth­er explo­sives,” but “the attack was beat­en back.

Colonel Musa says an exchange of gun­fire pit­ted armed men who arrived on a dozen or so speed­boats against a Joint Mil­i­tary Task Force.

The most promi­nent mil­i­tant group in oil-rich south­ern Nige­ria on Sun­day said it had declared an “oil war” and threat­ened all inter­na­tion­al indus­try ves­sels that approach the region.

MEND said in an email to the media it has code-named its oper­a­tion Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa, com­plete­ly razed down the Shell Alakiri oil flow sta­tion.

“About 0100 Hrs, today … Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa com­menced with heav­i­ly armed fight­ers in hun­dreds of war boats fil­ing out from dif­fer­ent MEND bases across the Niger Delta in sol­i­dar­i­ty to car­ry out destruc­tive and dead­ly attacks on the oil indus­try in Rivers state,” the group said.

The “war” was in response to what it says were unpro­voked aer­i­al and marine attacks by the army Sat­ur­day on one of its posi­tions.

Lieu­tenant-Colonel Sagir, ear­li­er Sun­day con­firmed what he said was an abort­ed attack on the Robertkiri facil­i­ty oper­at­ed in Rivers state by US oil giant Chevron.

Chevron con­firmed a shoot­ing inci­dent at the Robertkiri facil­i­ty but said it did not have infor­ma­tion to sug­gest the attack was direct­ed specif­i­cal­ly at the com­pa­ny. It said no expa­tri­ate work­ers were involved in the inci­dent and pro­duc­tion was not impact­ed.

“As a result of on-going pipeline repair work the Robertkiri facil­i­ty … had been shut-in pri­or to the inci­dent. The shoot­ing inci­dent has not had any addi­tion­al impact on cur­rent lev­els of … pro­duc­tion,” com­pa­ny spokesman Scott Walk­er said in an email.

MEND how­ev­er, said that dur­ing the Chevron attack it “inter­cept­ed, killed and dis­pos­sessed of their weapons 22 well armed sol­diers” who were sent in as rein­force­ments.

Chevron said that while none of its employ­ees was hurt as a result of the shoot­ing, ini­tial reports sug­gest that two employ­ees of a local marine ves­sel sup­ply com­pa­ny, Dah­nariq Nige­ria Ltd — which sup­plies small ves­sels to Chevron — might have died.

Roy­al Dutch Shell said it was still inves­ti­gat­ing reports of the attacks on its facil­i­ties.

“The oper­a­tion will con­tin­ue until the gov­ern­ment of Nige­ria appre­ci­ates that the solu­tion to peace in the Niger Delta is jus­tice, respect and dia­logue,” MEND said.

The group warned all ves­sels to stay on the high seas and not to come into port. The Niger Delta is an area of creeks and swamps the size of Scot­land locat­ed on the Gulf of Guinea.

“All inter­na­tion­al oil and gas load­ing ves­sels enter­ing the region are warned to drop anchor in the high sea or divert else­where until fur­ther notice. Fail­ure to com­ply is tak­ing a fool­hardy risk of attack and destruc­tion of the ves­sel.”

It also reit­er­at­ed the warn­ing it issued Sat­ur­day to oil com­pa­nies telling them to evac­u­ate their staff from field facil­i­ties.

“Again, we are ask­ing that oil com­pa­nies evac­u­ate their staff from their field facil­i­ties because the brief is not to cap­ture hostages but to bring these struc­tures to the ground,” MEND said.

MEND has made sim­i­lar dra­mat­ic threats in the past about destroy­ing oil facil­i­ties and halt­ing oil exports from the region total­ly but has not so far made good on them, although it has kept up its cam­paign of kid­nap­pings and sab­o­tage.

Tech­ni­cal­ly how­ev­er the group is capa­ble of very ambi­tious attacks. In June its fight­ers attacked Bon­ga, Shel­l’s flag­ship field, 120 kilo­me­tres (74 miles) off the coast of Nige­ria. Until that attack deep­MEND, Niger Delta off­shore facil­i­ties had been thought to be out of reach of mil­i­tant groups.

Ear­li­er this week, Pres­i­dent Umaru Yar’Ad­ua announced the cre­ation of a min­istry for the Niger Delta, in an attempt to bring peace to the region.

The mil­i­tants dis­missed the plan, say­ing 40 oth­er min­istries in exis­tence, have done lit­tle to improve life for Nige­ri­ans.

The kid­nap­ping of oil work­ers and sab­o­tage of oil facil­i­ties have reduced the coun­try’s crude pro­duc­tion by about a quar­ter over the past two years, which cur­rent­ly exports around two mil­lion bar­rels of oil dai­ly.

Unrest in the Niger Delta cost Nige­ria its posi­tion as Africa’s biggest oil pro­duc­er. In April it was over­tak­en by Ango­la, accord­ing to the Orga­ni­za­tion of Petro­le­um Export­ing Coun­tries (OPEC).
—

MEND Fight­ers Destroy Shell Facil­i­ty In Dawn Raid

Less than 12 hours after mil­i­tants kid­napped Pro­fes­sor Bari­nen­me Fakae, the Vice Chan­cel­lor of the Rivers State Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, RSUST, at about 7 p.m., last night, in Ogo­ni, while return­ing to Port Har­court, mil­i­tants, in 10 speed­boats, attacked Shell flow sta­tion at Alakiri, at about 1235 a.m., today, in an oper­a­tion” Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa”, Sep­tem­ber 15, 2008.

Accord­ing to MEND, in state­ment post­ed online to PMNews, in Port Har­court, the attack is part of its “con­tin­ued destruc­tive sweep through Rivers state of Nige­ria.”

The group added: “the eye of the storm struck a direct hit at the expan­sive Alakiri flow sta­tion com­plex oper­at­ed by the Shell Petro­le­um Devel­op­ment Company.The facil­i­ty was still burn­ing when we left.”

How­ev­er, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, the spokesman of the Joint Mil­i­tary Task­force, JTF, spoke on the ear­ly morn­ing attack, con­firm­ing that the attack last­ed for about an hour.

He said the mil­i­tants car­ried out the oper­a­tion with the mas­sive use of bombs, dyna­mites and oth­er weapons of war. Lt. Sagir Musa said that the attack was repelled and the mil­i­tants suf­fered heavy casu­al­ties. He, how­ev­er, feared that the flow­sta­tion must have caught fire “as a result of the cross­fire dur­ing the encounter.”

He claimed that there was no casu­al­ty on the side of the JTF. Because of the trech­er­ous ter­rain and the dif­fi­cul­ty in get­ting authen­tic infor­ma­tion as to the true casu­al­ties in the bat­tle between the mil­i­tants and the JTF, there has been a pro­pa­gan­da war. About atwo weeks ago, the mil­i­tants claimed that they killed 26 sol­diers, but the army head­quar­ters said it was a lie and that none of its bases was attacked.

It’s real­ly dif­fi­cult to get inde­pen­dent con­fir­ma­tion in terms of casu­al­ties as usu­al­ly claimed. But Jomo Gbo­mo, the spokesman for MEND, claimed that “heav­i­ly armed fight­ers from the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta stormed the facil­i­ty and have razed it to the ground as promised. The fool­hardy work­ers and sol­diers who did not heed our warn­ing per­ished inside the sta­tion.

“Resis­tance was nonex­is­tent as the sol­diers fled their dug-in posi­tions, leav­ing behind their col­leagues and the work­ers inside the facil­i­ty to their fate.”

The MEND spokesman fur­ther cau­tioned those in the oil indus­try to steer clear of all oil facil­i­ties in the region because of the”Oil War” it has declared against the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment for allow­ing its troops to bomb its base at Elem-Tombia, in Dege­ma Local Gov­ern­ment area on Sat­ur­day, 13 Sep­tem­ber.

The camp is owned by a pop­u­lar mili­tia leader known as FARAH. MEND fur­ther warned that “A word is enough for the wise. MEND reit­er­ates its pre­vi­ous warn­ings to ALL oil work­ers in the entire Niger Delta region to evac­u­ate from oil facil­i­ties and halt pro­duc­tion with imme­di­ate effect or they will have them­selves to blame.”

The mil­i­tant group called on “the wives of sol­diers to con­vince their hus­bands to aban­don this duty of injus­tice to avoid becom­ing wid­ows. Fam­i­lies of oil work­ers should offer the same advice. Inter­na­tion­al ves­sels should not come in to load crude oil. Own­ers of such ves­sels should be warned that the ves­sels will suf­fer the same fate of the Alakiri flow sta­tion. Hostages will not be tak­en. Do not be deceived. The Niger­ian mil­i­tary can­not pro­tect you.”

Ear­li­er at the week­end, against the back­drop of mil­i­tary bom­bard­ment of Elem-Tombia, the camp of a gang leader, George Farah, at about 9a.m., Sat­ur­day, that led to uncon­firmed casu­al­ties, the group said it has declared all out oil war tagged “Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa” in the region.

The group’s spokesman, Jomo Gbo­mo, in an e‑mail to PMNews in Port Har­court, said that the oper­a­tion was in sol­i­dar­i­ty with its camp that that was bom­bard­ed by the Joint Task Force.

Accord­ing to the online state­ment, “Fol­low­ing a pre­vi­ous warn­ing that any attack on our posi­tions will be tan­ta­mount to a dec­la­ra­tion of an oil war, the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND) has declared an oil war in response to the unpro­voked aer­i­al and marine attacks on a MEND posi­tion in Rivers state of Nige­ria on Sep­tem­ber 13, 2008 by the armed forces of Nige­ria.

“About 0100 Hrs, today, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2008, Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa com­menced with heav­i­ly armed fight­ers in hun­dreds of war boats fil­ing out from dif­fer­ent MEND bases across the Niger Delta in sol­i­dar­i­ty to car­ry out destruc­tive and dead­ly attacks on the oil indus­try in Rivers state. The group furher claimed that “By dawn, destroyed oil flow sta­tions, gun boats, burst pipelines, dead and injured sol­diers trailed in the after­math of the ‘hur­ri­cane’.

“Some spe­cif­ic loca­tions include the Soku Gas Plant, Chevron Plat­form at Kula, over 22 well armed sol­diers sent as rein­force­ment were inter­cept­ed, killed and dis­pos­sessed of their weapons, a major crude trunk pipeline at Nem­be creek was blown up at sev­er­al points.”

MEND vowed that “The oper­a­tion will con­tin­ue until the gov­ern­ment of Nige­ria appre­ci­ates that the solu­tion to peace in the Niger Delta is jus­tice, respect and dia­logue. This mil­i­tary-style bul­ly­ing belongs to the past 50 years when the Niger Delta peo­ple respond­ed only with their mouths, pens and plac­ards.” MEND fur­ther stat­ed: “All inter­na­tion­al oil and gas load­ing ves­sels enter­ing the region are warned to drop anchor in the high sea or divert else­where until fur­ther notice. Fail­ure to com­ply is tak­ing a fool­hardy risk of attack and destruc­tion of the ves­sel. Again, we are ask­ing that oil com­pa­nies evac­u­ate their staff from their field facil­i­ties because the brief is not to cap­ture hostages but to bring these struc­tures to the ground.”

Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, the spokesman for JTF, told a local radio sta­tion in Port Har­court that it repelled an attempt by mil­i­tants to attack the Amer­i­can oil giant, Chevron facil­i­ty, in the Okri­ka area of Rivers State.

Mean­while, Mr Bless­ing Wik­i­na, the Act­ing Chief Press Sec­re­tary to Gov­er­nor Chibuike Amaechi, has con­demned the kid­nap of Prof. Fakae last night and called for his uncon­di­tion­al release. Mr. Wik­i­na told P.M.News in a tele­phone inter­view this morn­ing that “the kid­nap of an eru­dite Pro­fes­sor like the RSUST VC is a dis­ser­vice to human­i­ty and cer­tain­ly not part Niger Delta strug­gle.”

He lament­ed that “for a VC who has been involved in human capac­i­ty build­ing for our youths to face the chal­lenges of tomor­row can­not have his free­dom cur­tailed by the same youths he has been labor­ing for all his life as a uni­ver­si­ty teacher from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nige­ria, Nsuk­ka as a lec­tur­er, Bori Poly­tech­nic as a Provost and until recent­ly, the VC of RSUST appoint­ed by Gov­er­nor Amae­hi to change the for­tunes of the instu­tion.” No group has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the kid­nap.

—

Niger­ian mil­i­tants launch new attacks in “oil war”
15 Sep 2008

Niger­ian mil­i­tants on Mon­day attacked oil facil­i­ties, killing a guard and forc­ing the evac­u­a­tion of near­ly 100 work­ers, in a third day of fight­ing with secu­ri­ty forces that has dis­rupt­ed oil out­put.

Secu­ri­ty sources said the three days of clash­es were the heav­i­est between the two sides since the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND) launched a cam­paign of vio­lence in ear­ly 2006 say­ing it want­ed more local con­trol of the impov­er­ished region’s oil wealth.

MEND declared an “oil war” on Sun­day and warned all oil work­ers to leave the delta imme­di­ate­ly, threat­en­ing to dis­rupt pro­duc­tion fur­ther in the world’s eighth largest oil exporter.

“MEND reit­er­ates its pre­vi­ous warn­ings to all oil work­ers in the entire Niger Delta region to evac­u­ate from oil facil­i­ties and halt pro­duc­tion with imme­di­ate effect or they will have them­selves to blame,” the group said in an e‑mailed state­ment.

Two secu­ri­ty sources in the oil indus­try, who did not want to be named, said more than 100 peo­ple may have been killed by the fight­ing, which has spread to at least sev­en vil­lages in Rivers state.

Up to 115,000 bar­rels per day of oil pro­duc­tion may have been halt­ed since Sat­ur­day, gov­ern­ment offi­cials said. A fifth of the OPEC mem­ber’s oil out­put has already been shut down for the last two years due to the vio­lence.

Oil traders shrugged off the news as prices briefly hit a sev­en-month low near $94 a bar­rel on Mon­day.

GUNBOAT ATTACK

Around 10 mil­i­tant gun­boats attacked a Roy­al Dutch Shell flow sta­tion and gas plant at Alakiri in Rivers state ear­ly Mon­day morn­ing, a mil­i­tary spokesman said.

“The attack last­ed over an hour. Dyna­mite and bombs were mas­sive­ly det­o­nat­ed by the mis­cre­ants,” said Lieu­tenant Colonel Sagir Musa, spokesman for the mil­i­tary task force in Rivers state. “The sit­u­a­tion is being close­ly mon­i­tored and is under con­trol.”

A Shell spokes­woman said a secu­ri­ty guard was killed and four oth­er peo­ple were wound­ed in the attack.

The com­pa­ny has reduced the num­ber of employ­ees at some of its Niger­ian oil­fields, but it could not spec­i­fy how many or from which fields due to secu­ri­ty rea­sons.

An indus­try source said near­ly 100 staff were evac­u­at­ed from the facil­i­ty.

Nige­ri­a’s senior oil work­ers’ union PENGASSAN, rep­re­sent­ing around 25,000 employ­ees, is con­sid­er­ing the evac­u­a­tion of its mem­bers in the Niger Delta due to secu­ri­ty con­cerns, said Bayo Olowoshile, the group’s sec­re­tary gen­er­al.

CASUALTIES

Musa said mil­i­tants incurred heavy loss­es in the last three days and no sol­diers had been killed. He would not spec­i­fy the num­ber of casu­al­ties. MEND said at least 22 sol­diers and sev­en oth­ers were killed since Sat­ur­day. It was not pos­si­ble to inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy claims from either side.

The two oil indus­try secu­ri­ty sources said the fight­ing involved the army, navy and air force.

“This is just the start of a major mil­i­tary offen­sive in the delta that is like­ly to con­tin­ue for the next cou­ple of weeks,” a secu­ri­ty source said.

“The mil­i­tary has declined to say how many peo­ple have died in fear of whip­ping up pub­lic sen­ti­ment against them,” he added.

Musa on Sun­day denied the mil­i­tary had launched a major offen­sive, say­ing it was respond­ing to assaults from mil­i­tants. MEND said the mil­i­tary attacks were unpro­voked.

The Niger Delta is a vast net­work of nar­row creeks and remote vil­lages, and ini­tial reports of fight­ing are often con­fused. The mil­i­tary and the mil­i­tants reg­u­lar­ly accuse each oth­er of pro­pa­gan­da when clash­es take place.

MEND has also attacked a Chevron oil plat­form and Shell-oper­at­ed pipelines and gas plant in the last three days.

The dete­ri­o­rat­ing secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in the delta, home to Nige­ri­a’s oil sec­tor, is con­sid­ered to be the biggest hin­drance to eco­nom­ic growth in Africa’s most pop­u­lous coun­try.
——

MEND ”attacks” major oil pipeline as ‘oil war’ con­tin­ues in Nige­ria
16/09/2008

The ‘oil war’ declared by the Niger Delta’s largest mil­i­tant group entered day four Tues­day with the group claim­ing a fresh attack on a major crude oil pipeline oper­at­ed by Shell at Bakana Front in Dege­ma coun­cil area of Rivers state Mon­day night.

The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND), which declared the war on Sat­ur­day in response to a mil­i­tary offen­sive against it, said in a state­ment e‑mailed to the media Tues­day that the pipeline was destroyed by its ‘det­o­na­tion engi­neers’ backed by heav­i­ly-armed fight­ers using ‘high explo­sives’.

The mil­i­tary Joint Task Force (JTF) oper­at­ing in the oil region denied any attack took place.

But spokesman, Lt.-Col. Sagir Musa, said the mil­i­tary thwart­ed an attempt by mil­i­tants rid­ing in six speed boats to attack Chevron’s Idama flow sta­tion at about 1am local time Tues­day.

”The attack was com­mend­ably and hero­ical­ly thwart­ed by JTF troops on guard at the sta­tion. Three mil­i­tants’ boats were shat­tered when own troops unwill­ing­ly used RPG to foil the attack. Two boats were sunk with all the occu­pants aboard,” Musa said, adding that only 1 sol­dier was wound­ed in attack.

Both sides have been mak­ing claims and counter-claims since the mil­i­tary launched aer­i­al, land and sea attack on the mil­i­tants’ posi­tion Sat­ur­day, say­ing it was only in response to attacks by the mil­i­tants.

But sources said the mil­i­tary had decid­ed to take on the mil­i­tants to stop, once and for all, the threat they posed to oil pro­duc­tion and peace in the restive region, where MEND’s attacks have slashed oil pro­duc­tion by 20 per cent.

Since Sat­ur­day, MEND claimed to have attack sev­er­al oil pipelines and facil­i­ties owned by Chevron, Shell and the Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) project, as part of an ‘oil war’ aimed at crip­pling Nige­ri­a’s oil pro­duc­tion.

Mean­while, MEND said it would soon release the two South Africans who were kid­napped by pirates in the region last week, fol­low­ing an appeal from the wife of its leader Hen­ry Okah, who is cur­rent­ly being tried in Nige­ria for gun run­ning, trea­son and oth­er charges.

The South Africans were part of the 22 oil work­ers ‘res­cued’ from kid­nap­pers by MEND. Oth­ers include British, Ukrain­ian and Niger­ian cit­i­zens.

”(Mrs.) Azu­ka Okah, who has arrived into Nige­ria to per­son­al­ly press for their release, has informed us of the respect and hos­pi­tal­i­ty she and her chil­dren have received in South Africa which she con­sid­ers home, since the unjust incar­cer­a­tion of her hus­band in Sep­tem­ber 3, 2007.

”We are impressed by the South African gov­ern­men­t’s respect for the rule of law as some oth­er coun­tries such as Ango­la or Nige­ria would have treat­ed the fam­i­ly dif­fer­ent­ly.

”In con­sid­er­a­tion of the above, MEND will be rec­i­p­ro­cat­ing the ges­ture by releas­ing the two hostages to the care of the South African gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the ear­li­est con­ve­nience after work­ing out the modal­i­ties, includ­ing safe­ty con­cerns since the creek is now a war zone,” MEND said in a sep­a­rate state­ment.

——

MEND attacks Shell flow sta­tion as ‘oil war’ con­tin­ues in Niger Delta
17/09/2008

Lagos, Nige­ria — Mil­i­tants using dyna­mites and bombs destroyed Shel­l’s Oru­biri flow sta­tion in Rivers state in Nige­ri­a’s Niger Delta oil region Tues­day night in con­tin­u­a­tion of the ‘oil war’ which they declared as a reprisal for the mil­i­tary offen­sive launched against them on Sat­ur­day.

A state­ment e‑mailed to jour­nal­ists by the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND) said mil­i­tants from the group as well as the rival Niger Delta Vol­un­teer Force (NDVF) car­ried out the attack at 2200hrs.

MEND said all the sol­diers on guard at the facil­i­ty were killed and that their house­boat was destroyed.

Spokesman for the Joint Task Force deployed to the region. Lt.-Col. Sagir Musa, con­firmed the attack in his own state­ment, but said no sol­dier was killed.

Musa said mil­i­tants in eight speed boats attacked the facil­i­ty and ”det­o­nat­ed dyna­mites, bombs and lobbed some pieces of hand grenade on the facil­i­ty”.

”It is feared that the facil­i­ty might have caught fire due to intense, spo­radic gun shots and mas­sive dyna­mites and bomb explo­sion,” the mil­i­tary spokesman said.

Mean­while, MEND has repeat­ed its warn­ings to oil com­pa­nies to evac­u­ate their staffers from facil­i­ties in the region, say­ing the oper­a­tion — tagged Hur­ri­cane Bar­bar­rosa — would soon spread from Rivers to oth­er states in the region.

Tues­day night’s attack was the lat­est in a series launched by the region’s largest mil­i­tant group since Sat­ur­day’s air, land and sea offen­sive against the ram­pag­ing mil­i­tants, whose attacks have cut Nige­ri­a’s oil pro­duc­tion by one fifth.

The mil­i­tary has scoffed at the threat by the mil­i­tants to crip­ple Nige­ri­a’s oil pro­duc­tion through their lat­est attacks, say­ing they (mil­i­tary) are capa­ble of defend­ing the ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty of Nige­ria from inter­nal and exter­nal aggres­sion.

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Mil­i­tants Hit Shell Again, Destroy Anoth­er Pipeline

Less than 24 hours after the vis­it of top Defence Chiefs, led by Air Mar­shal Paul Dike, to mil­i­tary instal­la­tions in Rivers state, MEND has alleged­ly bombed and destroyed a major pipeline at the Eleme-Kal­abari Cawthorne Chan­nel axis, belong­ing to Shell Petro­le­um Devel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, SPDC.

The group also stat­ed that it has released two South African hostages ear­li­er kid­napped by peo­ple the group called sea pirates, unharmed.

Accord­ing to MEND spokesman, Jomo Gbo­mo: “At 18:30hrs today, Sep­tem­ber 18, 2008, fight­ers from the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND), using explo­sives destroyed a major pipeline belong­ing to Shell Devel­op­ment Com­pa­ny at the Eleme-Kal­abari Cawthorne Chan­nel axis in Rivers State of Nige­ria.”

MEND fur­ther claimed that, “a gun­boat patrol that hap­pened to bump into the MEND fight­ers begged for their lives and showed their mag­a­zines to prove that they had not fired from their guns. They were spared and allowed to go, but not until after they had pledged loy­al­ty to the strug­gle and denounced the crim­i­nal­i­ty of the oil com­pa­nies and the gov­ern­ment.”

MEND accused Niger­ian secu­ri­ty agen­cies of lying that they had ear­li­er secured the release of the South Africans abduct­ed by sea pirates. The group stat­ed that it “can cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly con­firm that the two South African hostages res­cued by MEND from sea pirates have been released unharmed today, Sep­tem­ber 18, 2008. The duo were hand­ed over to government’s secret ser­vice offi­cials, who will in turn hand them over to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the South African High Com­mis­sion in Port Har­court, Rivers State of Nige­ria.

“This gen­uine release puts to rest spec­u­la­tions and anx­i­ety of the fam­i­lies and the peo­ple of South Africa caused by the false state­ment from the obtuse spokesman of the mil­i­tary Joint Task “Fraud” (JTF).

“In this case, the Army had hoped to cash in on a delib­er­ate mis­in­for­ma­tion we put out and take the cred­it for a role they had no part in.” MEND, in two e‑mails sent to P.M.News in Port Har­court, stat­ed that: “We have been won­der­ing how fool­ish he must have looked when they could not pro­duce the hostages they said were released with­out any ran­som pay­ment.”

The rebel group said the release of the South African hostages expos­es the claims by the Army that it secured the release as untrue. “Nige­ri­ans and the world can now see that we have a mil­i­tary of deceit that have lied about their com­bat loss­es and gains, role in extra-judi­cial killings, rape, geno­cide and oil theft.”

As at press time P.M.News was not able to get an offi­cial reac­tion from the Joint Task Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, as calls to his mobile lines did not go through.

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Nige­ria mil­i­tants wage most intense oil war for years

Sept 20 — Niger­ian mil­i­tants said on Sat­ur­day they had destroyed anoth­er major oil pipeline in the Niger Delta after a week of the most intense attacks against Africa’s biggest oil and gas indus­try for years.

The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it had attacked a pipeline oper­at­ed by Roy­al Dutch Shell at Bugu­ma Front in Rivers state late on Fri­day and warned its cam­paign was not over.

A Shell spokes­woman in Nige­ria said the com­pa­ny was inves­ti­gat­ing the claim, but gave no fur­ther details.

The Anglo-Dutch giant, the com­pa­ny hard­est hit by the vio­lence, declared a sec­ond force majeure on Bon­ny Light oil ship­ments on Fri­day fol­low­ing the week’s unrest but gave no details on pro­duc­tion.

“MEND will con­tin­ue to nib­ble every day at the oil infra­struc­ture in Nige­ria until the oil exports reach zero,” the group said in an e‑mailed state­ment.

MEND fight­ers have hit pipelines, flow sta­tions and oil and gas facil­i­ties in the Niger Delta every day since last Sun­day, when the group declared an “oil war” in response to what it said were mil­i­tary ground and air strikes.

Shell oper­ates onshore in Nige­ria through its SPDC joint ven­ture, of which it holds 30 per­cent while state oil firm NNPC holds 55 per­cent. Local sub­sidiaries of France’s Total and Italy’s Agip hold the rest.

Shell had already been forced to extend a force majeure on Niger­ian Bon­ny Light exports, which frees it from con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions, fol­low­ing an attack on a major pipeline in July.

Such inten­si­ty of attacks across the east­ern Niger Delta, a vast net­work of man­grove creeks, makes assess­ing the impact dif­fi­cult as engi­neers scram­ble to inves­ti­gate exact­ly how much pro­duc­tion has been hit in each loca­tion.

Niger­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials have said pro­duc­tion has fall­en by 150,000 bar­rels per day (bpd) over the past week, and esti­mate the coun­try’s cur­rent out­put at 1.95 mil­lion bpd.

INTENSE AND SUSTAINED

The attacks this week have large­ly been lim­it­ed to Rivers state in the east­ern Niger Delta but MEND has warned it may extend its cam­paign to oth­er areas on- and off-shore.

The vio­lence has been the most intense and sus­tained since MEND first launched its cam­paign of sab­o­tage in ear­ly 2006, and has includ­ed rel­a­tive­ly rare direct con­fronta­tion with the army.

The world oil mar­ket, which has large­ly focused on the fall­out from the cred­it cri­sis, has found some sup­port from the sit­u­a­tion. Prices trad­ed above $100 on Fri­day.

MEND said it had launched this week’s cam­paign — an oper­a­tion it calls “Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa” — in response to air and naval attacks on one of its bases in Rivers state.

“When (Rivers state gov­er­nor Roti­mi) Amaechi took over, the gov­ern­ment just said that they must kill me and my boys,” one mil­i­tant leader, Ateke Tom, told Reuters tele­vi­sion this week.

“That is why we are fight­ing back,” he said, sur­round­ed by heav­i­ly armed fight­ers.

The mil­i­tants want greater devel­op­ment and a bet­ter liv­ing envi­ron­ment after decades of neglect in the delta, where impov­er­ished vil­lagers live among pol­lut­ed land and water.

The unrest is fuelled by a lucra­tive trade in stolen oil worth mil­lions of dol­lars a day.

Secu­ri­ty experts say the region will nev­er be sta­ble unless an alter­na­tive source of income can be found for the gun­men, busi­ness­men, politi­cians and inter­na­tion­al ship­pers all tak­ing their slice of the ille­gal prof­its.

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Niger­ian mil­i­tants step up ‘oil war’ claim­ing sixth attack

Sep­tem­ber 20, 2008
Nige­ri­a’s main armed mil­i­tant group Sat­ur­day said it had destroyed a major pipeline run by Roy­al Dutch Shell in the sixth such attack in the past week as it vowed to paral­yse the key oil sec­tor.

The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main group fight­ing for a greater share of south­ern Nige­ri­a’s oil wealth for local peo­ple, said the attack took place on Fri­day on a “major pipeline” in Rivers state.

It said the pipeline was locat­ed at Bugu­ma Front in the Asari Toru region and was the lat­est tar­get of the “oil war” it launched on Sun­day and has nick­named “Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa.”

“The mil­i­tary and the gov­ern­ment of Nige­ria whose unpro­voked attack on our posi­tion prompt­ed this oil war are no match for a guer­ril­la insur­gency of this kind,” it said.

The MEND on Sat­ur­day vowed to “con­tin­ue to nib­ble every day at the oil infra­struc­ture in Nige­ria until the oil exports reach zero.”

Ear­li­er in the week, Shell con­firmed the first attack on its Alakiri flow sta­tion and a sec­ond on the Greater Port Har­court Swamp Line, both on Mon­day.

As the week went on it became pro­gres­sive­ly more tight-lipped, nei­ther con­firm­ing or deny­ing claims of attacks on its Oru­biri flow sta­tion, Rumuekpe pipeline and anoth­er pipeline at the Elem-Kal­abari Cawthorne Chan­nel axis in Rivers state.

Chevron mean­while has con­firmed two “shoot­ing inci­dents” near its facil­i­ties whilst say­ing it has no rea­son to believe it was specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed in either attack.

MEND, which has cut Nige­ri­a’s oil out­put by more than one quar­ter since it first emerged in 2006, on Sun­day declared “war” on the oil indus­try, in what it said was a response to an attack by the Niger­ian army on its posi­tions.

It has threat­ened to spread its raids to neigh­bour­ing states.

On Wednes­day, in a rare day­light attack, MEND said it had blown up a major pipeline, which it said it believed belongs to Shell and to Agip of Italy.

The army and MEND have giv­en con­flict­ing ver­sion of many of the inci­dents, MEND nor­mal­ly say­ing the attack was suc­cess­ful and the army insist­ing it was repelled.

One of the main grous­es of MEND is that the oil wealth of Nige­ria, one of Africa’s top petro­le­um exporters, is basi­cal­ly enjoyed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and only a frac­tion of it trick­les down to the locals.

It also accus­es oil com­pa­nies of wreak­ing hav­oc on the envi­ron­ment.

MEND spokesman Jomo Gbo­mo on Sat­ur­day claimed to have grass­roots sup­port.

“The impov­er­ished and neglect­ed inhab­i­tants of oil pro­duc­ing com­mu­ni­ties con­sid­er our actions to these struc­tures as good rid­dance to bad rub­bish,” he said.

“Oil explo­ration has brought only pain to them by way of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age (farm­lands, fish­ing and wild life sanc­tu­ar­ies), harass­ment from the mil­i­tary and rape of under-aged girls by sol­diers, extra-judi­cial killings of young men and devel­op­ment and wealth to oth­er parts of the coun­try at their detri­ment.”

MEND has also warned it will attack the coun­try’s two big deep off­shore fields, Shel­l’s Bon­ga — which was hit in June — and Chevron’s Agba­mi, as well as oil and gas tankers in Niger­ian waters.

The lat­est attack claimed by MEND was cit­ed as a fac­tor in Fri­day’s rise in world oil prices to above 100 US dol­lars a bar­rel.

But ana­lysts said the pre­dom­i­nant rea­son was an improve­ment in mar­ket con­fi­dence after efforts to resolve the US-cen­tred world finan­cial cri­sis which brought pre­dic­tions of fur­ther falls in oil demand.

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MEND Con­tin­ues “Oil War” With Sixth Attack on Major Pipeline

The Move­ment Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND) in Niger Delta.for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta ( MEND ) Sat­ur­day said it had destroyed a key pipeline run by Roy­al Dutch Shell in the sixth attack in near­ly as many days and vowed to reduce oil exports to “zero”.

Shell react­ed by declar­ing force majeure on its exports from the Bon­ny ter­mi­nal to release it from con­trac­tu­al deliv­ery oblig­a­tions as a result of the lat­est attacks.

MEND, the main group fight­ing for a greater share of south­ern Nige­ri­a’s oil wealth for local peo­ple, said it had destroyed the “major pipeline” in Rivers state late Fri­day.

It said the pipeline was locat­ed at Bugu­ma Front in the Asari Toru region and was the lat­est tar­get of the “oil war” launched ear­li­er this week and nick­named “Hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa”.

“The mil­i­tary and the gov­ern­ment of Nige­ria whose unpro­voked attack on our posi­tion prompt­ed this oil war are no match for a guer­ril­la insur­gency of this kind”.

MEND promised to “con­tin­ue to nib­ble every day at the oil infra­struc­ture in Nige­ria until the oil exports reach zero.”

Oil and gas account for 90 per­cent of for­eign exchange earn­ings in the coun­try.

Pro­duc­tion cur­rent­ly veers between 1.8 and two mil­lion bar­rels a day against 2.6 mil­lion bar­rels two years ago.

Shell spokesman Pre­cious Okolobo said Sat­ur­day, “We have declared force majeure as a result of the recent attacks on our facil­i­ties.” The action relates to Shel­l’s sup­ply from Bon­ny.

He had ear­li­er said he was check­ing the report of the lat­est inci­dent, and refused to con­firm the impact of the pre­vi­ous five attacks claimed by MEND, say­ing: “We do not com­ment on our dai­ly pro­duc­tion.”

Ear­li­er in the week, Shell con­firmed the first attack on its Alakiri flow sta­tion and a sec­ond on the Greater Port Har­court Swamp Line, both on Mon­day.

As the week went on it became pro­gres­sive­ly more tight-lipped, nei­ther con­firm­ing or deny­ing claims of attacks on its Oru­biri flow sta­tion, Rumuekpe pipeline and anoth­er pipeline at the Elem-Kal­abari Cawthorne Chan­nel axis in Rivers state.

MEND, which has cut Nige­ri­a’s oil out­put by more than one quar­ter since it first emerged in 2006, on Sun­day declared “war” on the oil indus­try, in what it said was a response to an attack by the Niger­ian army on its posi­tions.

It has threat­ened to spread its raids to neigh­bour­ing states.

The army and MEND have giv­en con­flict­ing ver­sion of many of the inci­dents, MEND nor­mal­ly say­ing the attack was suc­cess­ful and the army insist­ing it was repelled.

One of the main grous­es of MEND is that the oil wealth of Nige­ria — now Africa’s sec­ond largest petro­le­um exporter after recent­ly falling from first place — is basi­cal­ly enjoyed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and only a frac­tion of it trick­les down to the locals.

It also accus­es oil com­pa­nies of wreak­ing hav­oc on the envi­ron­ment.

MEND spokesman Jomo Gbo­mo on Sat­ur­day claimed to have grass­roots sup­port.

“The impov­er­ished and neglect­ed inhab­i­tants of oil pro­duc­ing com­mu­ni­ties con­sid­er our actions to these struc­tures as good rid­dance to bad rub­bish,” he said.

“Oil explo­ration has brought only pain to them by way of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age (farm­lands, fish­ing and wild life sanc­tu­ar­ies), harass­ment from the mil­i­tary and rape of under-aged girls by sol­diers, extra-judi­cial killings of young men and devel­op­ment and wealth to oth­er parts of the coun­try at their detri­ment.”

MEND has also warned it will attack the coun­try’s two big deep off­shore fields, Shel­l’s Bon­ga — which was hit in June — and Chevron’s Agba­mi, as well as oil and gas tankers in Niger­ian waters.

The pre­vi­ous attack claimed by MEND was cit­ed as a fac­tor in Fri­day’s rise in world oil prices to above 100 dol­lars a bar­rel.

But ana­lysts said the pre­dom­i­nant rea­son was an improve­ment in mar­ket con­fi­dence after efforts to resolve the US-cen­tred world finan­cial cri­sis which brought pre­dic­tions of fur­ther falls in oil demand.

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Niger­ian mil­i­tants end “oil war” after string of attacks (Roundup)
Sep 21, 2008

Nige­ri­a’s most promi­nent mil­i­tant group said Sun­day it was call­ing a cease­fire after a week of attacks on oil instal­la­tions in the restive Niger Delta province.

Jomo Gbo­mo, spokesman for the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (MEND), told Deutsche Presse Agen­tur dpa that the ‘oil war’ it declared last Sun­day was being called off after requests from local elders.

The mil­i­tants attacked plat­forms, pipelines and oil flow-sta­tions owned by Chevron, Shell and Agip dur­ing the week-long step-up in hos­til­i­ties.

The group claimed to have killed dozens of sol­diers dur­ing the attacks, although the mil­i­tary dis­putes the fig­ures.

MEND launched the assaults after Niger­ian troops pound­ed mil­i­tant posi­tions with gun­ships.

Lieu­tenant Colonel Sagir Musa, a spokesman for the mil­i­tary in the Niger Delta, said that the gov­ern­ment was open to an ‘ami­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion of the cri­sis.’

‘We will con­tin­ue to care­ful­ly and firm­ly mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and exer­cise a lim­it­ed lev­el of restraint until MEND’s new posi­tion is seen to have been actu­al­ized,’ he told dpa.

Mil­i­tant groups such as MEND often attack oil instal­la­tions and kid­nap expa­tri­ate work­ers, say­ing they are fight­ing for a greater share of prof­its from oil exploita­tion for the poor of the region.

The gov­ern­ment says they are mere­ly crim­i­nal gangs intent on steal­ing oil and extort­ing mon­ey.

Pri­or to the lat­est string of attacks, the unrest had cut oil pro­duc­tion by around a fifth since ear­ly 2006, help­ing to push up glob­al oil prices and allow­ing Ango­la to sur­pass Nige­ria as Africa’s biggest oil exporter.

Oil com­pa­nies have yet to reveal by how much the lat­est attacks fur­ther cut pro­duc­tion.

Gbo­mo also denied accu­sa­tions by the Niger­ian mil­i­tary that MEND was recruit­ing youths to replace those mem­bers killed in clash­es.

How­ev­er, he warned that fur­ther attacks by the mil­i­tary would spark a more fero­cious response.

‘We hope that the mil­i­tary has learnt a bit­ter les­son,’ he said in a state­ment. ‘The next unpro­voked attack will start anoth­er oil war that will be so fero­cious that it will dim the pleas of the elders.’