Nigeria Militants Vow to Raise Oil Output Cuts by 1 Million B/D
March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Nigerian militants who are holding three foreign
oil workers hostage said they aim to cut the West African nation's oil
production by another 1 million barrels a day this month by stepping up
its attacks.
The kidnappings and attacks last month on a pipeline and the Forcados
export terminal forced Royal Dutch Shell Plc's venture to halt output
of 455,000 barrels a day, about a fifth of Nigeria's daily production.
The group, known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger
Delta, or MEND, failed to carry out its threat of a 30 percent shutdown
in February.
``The Nigerian government is not sufficiently impacted to consider the
conditions we have laid out before them and we perhaps need to be more
ambitious in our attacks on oil facilities,'' MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo
said today in an e- mailed response to questions. ``Whether we will
achieve this objective remains to be seen.''
The militants on March 1 released six of the nine foreign hostages,
including an American, two Egyptians, two citizens of Thailand and one
from the Philippines, whom they kidnapped from a Willbros Inc. boat on
Feb. 18. They're still holding two U.S. citizens and one Briton.
This month's target of 1 million barrels a day ``is excluding what has
been cut off the market so far,'' Gbomo said.
Nigeria produced 2.36 million barrels of oil a day in January, making
it the sixth-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Nations, according to Bloomberg data.
The fifth-biggest supplier to the U.S., Nigeria produces low sulfur, or
sweet, crude oil, prized by refiners for the proportion of high-value
gasoline it yields.
Restore Production
Nigerian Oil Minister Edmund Daukoru said on March 2 that the oil
industry, Africa's biggest, could restore three-quarters of lost
production within weeks of the release of the remaining hostages.
``As soon as the hostages are released, we hope to be able to fix the
facilities and to get about 75 percent of it back on line within two
weeks,'' Daukoru said in an interview in Washington.
MEND, which claims 5,000 members, has said it's planning to deliver
``one huge crippling blow'' to the oil industry and will expand its
attacks beyond the western delta.
Shell last month shut down its EA offshore oil field and all production
from the western Niger delta.
The Shell venture pumps about half of Nigeria's total oil production.
Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni SpA also have
ventures with the Nigerian state oil company.
MEND is demanding that the government release Diepreye Alamieyeseigha,
a former governor of Bayelsa state, who was impeached and arrested on
money-laundering charges, and Mujahid Dokubo Asari, a militia leader
who is in jail on treason charges. Asari is in and out of trial. The
governor, who has said he's innocent, is awaiting a court appearance.
The militants also want Shell to pay $1.5 billion to the Ijaw people,
the biggest ethnic group in the Niger delta, as compensation for
alleged environmental damage.
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