· Oil firm shuts down operations after attack
· FG, N/Delta leaders woo militants
Niger Delta militants between midnight on Wednesday and the early hours
of yesterday continued their bombing of oil facilities in the region by
blowing up two critical pipelines owned by Chevron Nigeria Limited.
The nascent Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), which claimed responsibility
for the attack, said it struck because the American oil giant flouted
its May 12, 2016 warning not to fix a major pipeline it had destroyed.
In its twitter handle, the group said: “We Warned #Chevron but they
didn’t Listen. @NDAvengers just blew up the Escravos tank farm Main
Electricity Feed Pipeline.”
One of the pipelines affected in the latest attacks supplies gas that
provides electricity to the Escravos tank farm in Delta State.
The attacks came on the heels of the expiration of a two-week ultimatum
the militant group issued to some oil blocs’ owners to halt their
exploration because of the ‘continued marginalisation of the people of
the region.’
The AUTHORITY learnt that the first attack occurred during Wednesday’s
downpour in the area while the second occurred after midnight.
It was also gathered that an underground Chevron crude oil trunk line
along the Ceria Creek near Abiteye was damaged by the explosions.
Military sources told The AUTHORITY that the impacts of the attacks
were first noticed by workers in the Production Department when they
observed a drop in the production pressure.
Although details of the incident were sketchy at the time of filing
this report, a senior Chevron official confirmed it, saying the attacks
occurred at midnight on Wednesday.
The source said a technical team of engineers had been dispatched to the scene of the spill to ascertain the true cause.
He said: “Information available to us revealed that the Ceria Creek and
all adjoining creeks of Abiteye have now been covered with massive
oil spill emanating from the trunk line.”
A Chevron security official added that “the explosions occurred while
it was raining,” adding: “There are two Chevron gas lines, which are
the onshore and offshore. It is the offshore pipeline that was affected
while the other one is a crude oil line. The affected pipelines are
located between the Chevron tank farm and Ceria near Abiteye
community.”
Chevron’s spokesman, Deji Haastrup did not pick calls put to his lines
while an electronic mail sent to him was also not replied at the time of
filing this report.
The AUTHORITY, however, learnt that the bombing of the twin facilities
has forced Chevron to shut down its operations in the area.
Since the Escravos onshore production accounts for almost a third of
Chevron’s total output, on average 3.8 million barrels monthly, the
company’s projected exports for the first 2016 have significantly
dropped.
Agency reports claimed that Escravos production was short by over
40,000 barrels daily after the May 5 militant attack on a Chevron
offshore facility.
Meanwhile, the growing unrest in the Niger Delta and wildfires in
Canada have reduced world crude output by four million barrels daily
thereby pushing price above $50.
Reuters and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported yesterday that
Brent oil climbed above $50 a barrel for the first time in nearly seven
months.
This is an indication that the global supply glut that plagued the market for nearly two years is showing signs of easing.
Oil prices have rallied in recent weeks after a string of outages due
mainly to wildfires in Canada and unrest in Nigeria and Libya.
Above $50 a barrel, oil was seen by many market players as breaching a
psychological barrier that could lead producers, particularly among the
United States (US) shale companies to revive operations scrapped in
recent years.
Global benchmark Brent crude oil LCOc1 was up 36 cents at 50.10 dollars a barrel, the highest in nearly seven months.
The upsurge was due to a larger-than-expected draw in U.S. crude oil
inventories, which last week indicated buyers are starting to mop up
spare supplies.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has challenged host communities and
state governors in in the Niger Delta to protect oil facilities in their
areas.
The government in a statement by the Group General Manager, Public
Affairs Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC), Garba Deen Mohammed, at the end of a stakeholders’ meeting in
Abuja, called on the youths to end the attacks.
Mohammed stated that the stakeholders from the Niger Delta region
resolved to work together to stop attacks on critical oil and gas
installations and ensure security, stability and economic development
of the area.
He said the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group
Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu expressed Federal
Government’s readiness to check the resurgence of pipeline sabotage in
the region.
Kachikwu said all the stakeholders resolved that solutions to the
incessant attacks on oil and gas pipelines are within the communities,
stressing that communities are now saddled with the responsibility of
ensuring protection of pipelines within their domain.
The minister added that all the states in the region would nominate
four or five representatives that would work hand-in-hand with security
agencies to secure oil facilities in their respective states.
He further was resolved, he said, that violence is not an option in
resolving the problems of the Niger Delta and that all threats from the
region should end henceforth.
He added that there is need to reach out to all other stakeholders who
were not part of the meeting to embrace peace and dialogue.
According to him, there is also need to restructure the Amnesty
Programme so as to address the critical issue of neglect by the
government and international oil companies.
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