MEND militant: in Nigeria
- 'Damaged pipeline not affecting output'
- Delta rebels attack Chevron pipeline
- Mend frees British hostage
- Chevron denies reports of militant attack on facility
- Nigeria renews amnesty offer
- Deal soon for Algeria-Nigeria pipeline
- Mend promises again to free hostage
- Chevron oil station hijacked in Nigeria
- Chevron confirms Nigeria fire
Mend threat to take war offshore
Nigeria's main militant group today threatened to extend its attacks to offshore oil facilities after sabotaging a Chevron-operated oil pumping station in the Niger Delta.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said it attacked the Abiteye flow station early this morning, the fifth militant attack claimed against the US supermajor in Delta state in less than a month.
The military confirmed the attack, but said its security forces were able to secure the facility and force the retreat of dozens of suspected militants.
"The hoodlums were overpowered by our troops and forced to flee," Colonel Rabe Abubakar, spokesman for the military task force in the Niger Delta, told Reuters.
The supermajor has already shut down its operations around Delta state after Mend's first pipeline attack on 24 May, halting about 100,000 barrels per day of oil output in Africa's biggest oil and gas producer.
Oil markets have largely shrugged off the latest violence, focusing attention instead on the broader global economy and its effect on energy demand.
Mend, responsible for attacks that have cut one fifth of Nigeria's oil production in the last three years, threatened to begin sabotaging oil facilities outside Delta state, including offshore oilfields.
"After destroying the entire oil infrastructure in Delta state, the hurricane will move into the neighbouring states of Bayelsa and Rivers before passing through the remaining states of Ondo, Edo and Akwa Ibom then finally head offshore," Mend said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
Last June, Mend carried out a raid on Shell's Bonga field, the Anglo-Dutch giant's main offshore facility 120 kilometres offshore, forcing the supermajor to temporarily shut in flows the $3.6 billion facility.
But a year later, security experts say Mend has been weakened following the military's biggest offensive in years last month. The army bombarded rebel camps from the air and sea and sent three battalions of soldiers to hunt militants down.
Oil companies have also increased security at offshore facilities, making a repeat of the Bonga attack harder.
Most of the oil infrastructure that Mend has targeted in recent weeks has been around Abiteye in Delta state, an area known to be hostile to the military and foreign oil companies.
Militants and local youths sabotaged oil pipelines in the area last November and again in March.
Although the area is supposed to have been secured by the military after last month's offensive, industry and security sources say it is virtually impossible to fully protect hundreds of kilometres of pipeline running through remote and largely unpopulated areas.