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Monday, 01 December, 2008, 22:10 GMT | more >>

Fire rages on Trans-Niger pipe



By Upstream staff 

A fire has broken out on the Shell-operated Trans-Niger oil export pipeline in Nigeria, but oil loadings have so far not been affected, the supermajor said today.

The cause of the fire, which started on a section of the Trans-Niger pipeline in the Ogoni area in the southern state of Rivers state on Sunday, has yet to be ascertained, a company spokesman said.

The Ogoni area been calm for sometime now, but a longstanding dispute with Shell, which shut the company's operations there for years is yet to be resolved.

A second fire was also reported on another pipeline that feeds Nigeria's biggest oil refinery in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers state, the spokesman told Reuters.

The Ogoni area has been calm for sometime now, but a long-standing dispute with Shell, which shut the company's operations there for years, is yet to be resolved.

"We do not know the cause of the latest fire but there were two fire incidents on the same pipeline last year and they were caused by sabotage," Shell spokesman Precious Okolobo told Reuters.

"The fire is still on but exports have not been affected," he said in Lagos.

Another company spokesman at the Hague in the Netherlands said Shell did "not plan to declare a force majeure for now", the Reuters report said.

Okolobo said Shell workers who tried to gain access to the area today to put out the fire and assess the damage were stopped by the community, but added they would try again tomorrow.

In one of last year's incidents, fires blazed at six different points on the pipeline.

It took Shell four months to douse the fires because the communities had initially denied Shell access, until the state government and local council intervened.

The pipeline, which also carries crude from fields operated by other companies, was sabotaged nine times last year, Shell had said.

Two separate attacks in May last year forced the company to halt up to 170,000 barrels per day output for a few days.

Shell abandoned its oilfields in Ogoniland after a wave of popular protests over pollution and neglect in 1993, but it still has big pipelines passing through the region and many residents are still angry about spills.

Local rights group, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, had previously said the fires were ignited by youths angry with the company over what they said were unfulfilled promises of jobs and benefits.

Disputes between local communities and oil multinationals producing Nigeria's over 2 million bpd are common in the Niger Delta.

A federal government-sponsored peace process in Ogoni has failed to quell protests and discontent in the area.


Tuesday, 01 April, 2008, 13:25 GMT  | last updated: Tuesday, 01 April, 2008, 14:53 GMT

Pipeline blaze: in Nigeria
 

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