By AFP,
Lagos : A Nigerian rebel group said Tuesday it had blown up and destroyed a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline in the latest attack in its “oil war” on the government and Western firms.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) also said it would soon release two South African hostages it allegedly rescued from pirates, even as unidentified gunmen abducted a Briton in the region’s oil capital as tensions spread.
“We can confirm that a section of the Greater Port Harcourt Swamp Line at Bakana, Rivers State, was attacked last night,” Shell spokesman Precious Okolobo told AFP, without giving any details. MEND and the army gave conflicting versions of the incident.
“A major crude oil pipeline at Bakana Front in Degema Local Government Area … was destroyed with high explosives by MEND detonation engineers,” MEND said in an email statement to the media.
Since it first evoked a possible oil war Saturday, MEND has attacked two Shell facilities and there have been two shooting incidents near Chevron installations. Bakana is in Rivers State, the heart of the oil region.
The two earlier attacks on Shell’s Alakiri flowstation and on a Chevron facility at Robertkiri are in the same state. A Nigerian army officer however said Monday night’s attack on the pipeline was repelled.
“Soldiers sighted the militants in time and confronted them so they dropped their explosives which detonated,” Lieutenant-Colonel Musa Sagir, spokesman for the army unit tasked with policing the Niger Delta, told AFP. There were also conflicting versions of an incident near Chevron’s Idama facility.
“Chevron … can confirm reports of shooting in the area of its Idama facilities, Rivers State at about 1.00 a.m. (0000 GMT) today,” the US giant said in a statement.
MEND said that five of its scouts on a recce around the flow station “were involved in a minor skirmish with nervous soldiers” guarding it.
A Nigerian military officer earlier Tuesday said his men had repelled an attempt to blow up a Chevron facility overnight. Chevron, echoing a comment it made after Sunday’s incident at its Robertkiri facility, also in Rivers, it said it did not “have information to suggest that the attack was directed specifically at Chevron”.
The company also said the incident had had no additional impact on production levels as the facility affected “had been shut-in prior to the incident as a result of on-going pipeline repair work”.
MEND, the most prominent armed group in the Delta, says it is fighting for local people to get a greater share of the huge oil revenues.
Since it began operating in early 2006 its activities have led to a 25 percent cut in Nigeria’s oil production. MEND declared an all-out war on the oil industry at the weekend in response to what it said was an unprovoked attack by the army on one of its positions.
Other less prominent armed groups appear to have either joined forces with MEND or taken advantage of the confusion. Unidentified gunmen on Monday night kidnapped a Briton in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers, the British embassy confirmed.
The Briton had worked for plastics company Indorama, an army spokesman said. In a separate development, MEND announced it would soon free two South Africans who were among 27 people — including 22 Nigerians, two Britons and a man thought to be Ukranian — it claimed to have rescued from pirates on Friday.
MEND said it was persuaded to release the two by an appeal from the wife of Henry Okah, one of the group’s leaders detained in secret in Nigeria. MEND had said Saturday it was planning to hold all 27 hostages as leverage for Okah’s release.
The army said it had raided a camp of fighters led by local warlord Ateke Tom in the Alakiri area on Monday.
Sagir said the army had uncovered “a plot to destabilise Rivers State.” He said local armed groups had set aside their differences to mount the plot together.