Nigeria - oil

Nigerian militants plan to destroy oil pipelines

Thursday 24 July 2008

Nigeria is the world's eighth largest producer of oil. The flow of black gold from the country is now once again threatened as a militant group say they will destroy the all important pipelines unless they're paid a "protection" fee.

The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta said on Wednesday it would attack major oil pipelines in the next 30 days to prove it had not received payment from the government to end its campaign.
 
The head of the state-run oil firm NNPC was quoted in Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday as saying the company had paid militant groups $12 million to protect facilities including the Chanomi creek pipeline in Delta state.
 
NNPC later issued a statement saying it had been quoted out of context and had contracted a local community construction company to carry out repairs at Chanomi for $50 million, which it said was part of its "community policing policy".
 
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), whose attacks have cut Nigeria's oil output by around a fifth since early 2006, said the money had gone to criminal gangs and that genuine "freedom fighters" could not be bought off.
 
"MEND is aware that huge payments have been made to some criminal gangs in Delta state as a protection fee ... MEND will never sell its birthright for a bowl of porridge," the group said in an e-mailed statement.
 
"To prove that we are not a part of this deal, the Chanomi creek pipeline and other major pipelines will be destroyed within the next 30 days," it said.
 
Bomb attacks on pipelines in the delta, the hub of Africa's biggest oil industry which produces around 2 million barrels per day, have disrupted supplies from the world's eighth biggest oil exporter and helped push global energy prices to record highs.
 
NNPC's Chanomi creek pipeline feeds from the Escravos terminal into refineries in Warri and Kaduna.
 
Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell, whose facilities have been amongst the worst hit by MEND's campaign of sabotage, also has a pipeline in the Chanomi creek which feeds into the Forcados oil export terminal.
 

"SETTLING THE BOYS"
 
The government of President Umaru Yar'Adua is under immense pressure to pacify the region and has promised to address the root causes of the unrest by bringing much-needed development to its impoverished and polluted villages.
 
Abubakar Yar'Adua, group managing director of NNPC, was quoted in several Nigerian newspapers as telling a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that the company had held talks with the militants and paid them funds so that it could repair Chanomi.
 
"The price we pay is very high. It is difficult to get expatriates to work in the Niger Delta," he was quoted as saying by Nigeria's The Guardian newspaper.
 
"We paid militants $12 million because we were losing $81 million to the problem of the Chanomi pipeline," he said.
 
Successive administrations in Nigeria have effectively bought off the leaders of militant groups in the Niger Delta by offering financial rewards for laying down their weapons, a strategy known locally as "settling the boys".
 
For similar reasons, local youths have been employed as vigilantes to keep watch over oil pipelines and protect them from attacks by crude oil thieves.
 
But the line between criminality and militancy has become blurred and some analysts say the strategy has exacerbated the problem, giving criminal gangs greater leverage and allowing fighters with fluctuating allegiances to carry weapons.