Output woes: in the Niger Delta
Pipe attack chokes Bonny flows
Villagers sabotaged a major export pipeline in Nigeria for the second time this month and halted 150,000 barrels per day of oil production, Shell said today.
Community members stormed the Bomu pipeline complex, which feeds the Bonny crude export terminal, prompting the partial shutdown of the Trans-Niger pipeline yesterday, a company spokesman told Reuters.
"Youths from the K-Dere community started to spoil the environment by opening some pressure indicator valves. Consequently, we had to shut in some of the oil production," he said.
Shell said it had already begun to restore some of the lost production, but would not specify how much.
The same protesters, from the Ogoni area of the Niger Delta, had attacked the same pipeline hub on 10 May and occupied it for six days, forcing a 170,000 bpd closure.
"It's the same group of boys who occupied the facility last time. They say Shell has broken the agreement it had with them and that's why they decided to occupy it again," Blessing Kolzor, a community leader in K-Dere, told the news agency.
The protesters want a stake in the oil flowing through Ogoni, an area where Shell suspended production 14 years ago because of popular protests. There is no production in Ogoni but the area is still criss-crossed by oil pipelines.
Shell had only just resumed normal production levels at its 400,000 bpd Bonny terminal before yesterday's attack. Exports remained under a force majeure.
The latest disruption brings the total amount of output shut in in Nigeria to 845,000 bpd, or one-third of capacity.
The country's new President Umaru Yar'Adua, who took office yesterday, said he would urgently address the crisis in the Niger Delta.
Militants fighting for regional control over the region's wealth have promised to release six hostages today as a sign of their readiness to talk. About 25 foreigners are currently being held captive.