Times Online: Shell pulls out staff after attacks leave oilfields facing paralysis: Poor Nigerians angry at the exploitation of their land are resorting to violence: "Despite Niger delta’s oil reserves of 35 billion barrels, about 20 million people still live in poverty.": Tuesday 17 January 2006

By Jonathan Clayton

SEPARATIST rebels in Nigeria were close to achieving their aim of paralysing oil production in the Niger delta after Shell made a partial evacuation of 326 oil workers yesterday following attacks on its facilities by heavily armed militants.

Shell acted after a speedboat attack on Sunday on one of its pumping stations off the port of Warri left an unknown number of people dead.

Its response to the fourth attack in five days alarmed international oil markets, already jittery over the West’s nuclear stand-off with Iran.

Last Wednesday four of Shell’s sub-contractors, including a Briton, were abducted from a support vessel by unidentified gunmen.

Two days later a bomb wrecked a Shell pipeline carrying 106,000 barrels a day, about 10 per cent of the company’s daily output.

The withdrawal, combined with threats by Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, to force up prices in response to threatened sanctions, pushed oil prices up

93 cents to $63.18 a barrel in early morning trade on the London markets. The price of the benchmark Brent North Sea crude for February delivery jumped 71 cents to $62.97 a barrel.

Nigeria, the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter, produces 2.4 million barrels of oil a day. Most of its sweet, low-sulphur crude, which can be quickly refined and marketed, goes to the United States.

Nigerian soldiers fought pitched battles with dozens of bandana-wearing youths, armed with AK47s, who poured off three speedboats and fought their way on to the Benisede flow station off the coast of Bayelsa, one of nine states in the impoverished Delta region..

The Nigerian military refused to say how many soldiers and militants had been killed. Local press reports and a security manager said that about 15 troops had died.

Shell, by far the largest oil producer in Nigeria, confirmed that one employee, a cook, had died and another ten staff had been taken to hospital. It said: “The company thought it prudent to minimise the risk to personnel by evacuating staff from the station and neighbouring fields.”

It said it had no plans to quit the delta but refused to rule out further evacuations. “Following the growing insecurity in the area, SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Corporation) commenced evacuation of some personnel from Benisede and neighbouring flow stations (Opukushi, Ogbotobo and Tunu),” it said in a statement from its London headquarters.

It added that all four flow stations had already been closed because of the attack on the Trans Ramos pipeline, and withdrawing staff would have no new impact on production.

The hostages, who include an American, a Bulgarian and a Honduran, are being held at Bomadi Creek deep in the delta, a patchwork of thick mangrove swamps ruled by warlords and their gangs, by a hitherto unknown group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

MEND, which is demanding the immediate release of Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, an Ijaw warlord due to appear in court today on treason charges, said after last week’s kidnapping that all oil workers should leave the area. “It must be clear that the Nigerian Government cannot protect your workers or assets. Leave our land now while you can or die in it,” the group said in an e-mail statement. “Our aim is to totally destroy the capacity of the Nigerian Government to export oil.”

The Delta produces most of Nigeria’s estimated output of 2.4 million barrels a day, but is one of the most impoverished regions in the country.
MEND also wants the release of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former Bayelsa state governor, who escaped in November from Britain, where he had been arrested on suspicion of money laundering and embezzlement.

The Ijaw and Ogoni people who live in the delta say they have seen little benefit from years of oil exploitation, which has destroyed fishing and caused environmental damage. According to the Government’s statistics, £220 billion has gone missing — most from oil revenues — because of corruption over the past 40 years.

Behind the violence lies growing political unease over the desire of President Obasanjo to remain in power beyond 2007, when he was originally expected to step down. The President, who has received backing from Tony Blair, faces growing opposition to a crackdown on corrupt politicians.

OIL RICHES IN A LAND OF POVERTY

Eight-largest exporter of crude oil — 2.4 million barrels produced per day

Fifth-biggest oil supplier to United States

95 per cent of foreign exchange earnings are oil-based

Third-largest Opec producer after Saudi Arabia and Iran

Despite Niger delta’s oil reserves of 35 billion barrels, about 20 million people still live in poverty

Click here to return to ShellNews.net HOME PAGE