Kidnappings,
sabotage slash Nigerian oil output
By Joel Olatunde Agoi
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 01 13 06
Nigerian pirates have sabotaged a major pipeline and kidnapped
four foreign oil workers, officials said Thursday, forcing the
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to cut production by 226,000 barrels
per day.
World oil prices surged on news of the dramatic events, hitting
64.95 dollars in New York trading, the highest level in more than
three months.
A military spokesman told AFP that an unidentified gang had intercepted
an oil supply vessel off the coast of the Niger Delta on Wednesday
and seized four expatriate workers -- a Briton, an American, a
Hungarian and a Bulgarian.
"They were kidnapped offshore, off Ekeremor in Bayelsa State.
We're still trying to establish where they are now. We don't know
which group took them," said Major Said Hammed, spokesman
for a joint military task force.
British, Bulgarian and US diplomats confirmed the report.
Officials speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that at
least some of the hostages were private security staff and that
the boat was operated by a Shell sub-contractor, Tidex.
"We decided to shut in 120,000 barrels of oil because of
security concerns which followed the kidnapping of four workers,"
a Shell manager said.
In a separate incident in the same region on Wednesday, an explosion
damaged a pipeline pumping crude from a network of oil wells in
the delta swamps to Shell's export terminal at Forcados, 180 kilometres
(110 miles) east of Lagos.
"We had to stop production in order to control the resultant
spills into the environment as a result of the vandalisation,"
a Shell spokesman said, confirming that production worth 106,000
barrels per day had been halted.
The shortfall equals more than nine percent of Nigeria's total
output, and comes barely a week after Shell restored production
of 180,000 barrels per day following an earlier pipeline explosion.
The events will send a shiver through world oil markets, which
have been closely monitoring a series of threats by separatist
ethnic Ijaw militants to avenge the arrest of two of their champions
in attacks on oil facilities.
Last year, federal agents detained Bayelsa State's governor, Diepreye
Alamieyeseigha, on money-laundering charges and charged militant
leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari with treason after he vowed to win
independence for the Ijaws.
Nevertheless, British diplomats said that there appeared to be
no link between the kidnappings and broader political tensions,
hinting instead at a localised community dispute of the kind that
often erupts in the delta.
Oil companies operating in Nigeria's main oil region are regularly
the target of kidnappings and the seizure of equipment by armed
gangs and youths from the poverty-stricken communities of the
area.
Such hostages are usually released after negotiation between the
oil firms and the abductors and -- although the oil firms deny
paying ransoms -- security officials have told AFP that cash payments
are often made.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest source of oil, producing 2.6 million
barrels per day last year, and the world's sixth biggest exporter
of crude.
Shell is the biggest player in the country's oil industry, accounting
for about half of total production. Wednesday's kidnapping took
place on a boat servicing Shell's EA offshore field, around 100
kilometres from the delta coast.
AFP
01/1206
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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