Still checking: says Shell of Mend claims to attacks
Shell yet to confirm Mend strikes
Shell said today it was still checking its oil operations in the Niger Delta after militants claimed they had launched three attacks against the Anglo-Dutch supermajor's facilities over the weekend.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said on Sunday it had attacked Shell pipelines at Adamakiri and Kula, both in Rivers state in the eastern Niger Delta.
The group also claimed it attacked the Afremo oilfields, which lie about 22 kilometres off the Forcados export terminal.
"The checks are still ongoing. We're looking at locations where we have reports of attacks," a Shell spokesman told Reuters.
Persistent attacks by Mend over the past three years have cut oil Nigeria's output by as much as two-thirds. The country's installed capacity is 3 million barrels per day.
Industry and security experts claim it is virtually impossible to prevent opportunistic attacks on hundreds of kilometres of pipeline and equipment in the remote mangrove creeks of the Niger Delta.
The latest campaign by Mend, which began a month ago, followed the military's biggest offensive against armed gangs in the Niger Delta for at least a decade.