Nigerian
gunmen attack Shell plant amid concern for hostages
By Dave Clark
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 01 16 06
Separatist gunmen shot dead several Nigerian troops and overran
an oil plant run by the Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell on Sunday,
amid fears for the safety of four kidnapped foreign workers.
Brigadier-General Elias Zamani, commander of a task force protecting
oil facilities in the Niger Delta, said both his men and attackers
had been killed during the fighting at Benisede flow station south
of the port city Warri.
"There were casualties on both sides, I don't know how many,"
he told AFP by telephone following the dawn attack.
Shell said that five of its staff had been injured and evacuated
to Warri, while an oil worker who was flown away from the site
told AFP that he had seen at least three soldiers unconscious
and with bullet wounds.
"Heavily armed persons ... attacked the SPDC Benisede flow
station in Bayelsa State," said a statement issued by Shell
on behalf of its Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development
Company (SPDC).
"The attackers invaded the flow station in speed boats, burnt
down two staff accommodation blocks, damaged the processing facilities
and left.
"Following the growing insecurity in the area, SPDC has commenced
evacuation of personnel on duty from Benisede, and neighbouring
flow stations," it added.
The attack came five days after a group of gunmen kidnapped four
oil workers and blew up the pipeline connecting Benisede and the
nearby Opukushi, Ogbotobo and Tunu flow stations to the Forcados
export terminal.
The hostages -- an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran
-- are thought to have been hidden in the swamps close to the
site of Sunday's attack.
Both the kidnapping and the pipeline blast have been claimed by
a previously unknown separatist group dubbed the Movement for
the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which seeks independence
for the region's 14-million-strong Ijaw people.
The group has demanded the release of two local champions, including
Ijaw guerrilla leader Mujahid Dokubo Asari, and warned in an e-mail
statement: "We are capable and determined to destroy the
ability of Nigeria to export oil."
Benisede is a riverside pumping station, which gathers crude oil
from a network of wells in swampland around the Bomadi Creek,
part of the Niger Delta 300 kilometres (185 miles) southeast of
Lagos.
The plant is routinely guarded by a platoon of Nigerian soldiers
from Zamani's Joint Task Force, a combined unit set up to protect
the Niger Delta's multi-billion-dollar oil industry from attack
by pirates and militias.
Navy spokesman Captain Obiara Medani told AFP that security forces
were still trying to locate the kidnappers in the creeks south
of Warri, but that any negotiations were a "political matter"
that he could not discuss.
"We are making progress as to their location," he said.
Although Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer, pumping around
2.6 million barrels per day worth billions of dollars, most Nigerians
still live in crippling poverty, especially in the remote creeks
of the delta.
This Scotland-sized swathe of mangrove forest and heavily wooded
swampland, is home to several heavily armed pirate gangs and militant
groups. Kidnappings and sabotage are common.
Asari declared a ceasefire in August 2004, but vowed to win Ijaw
independence and control over the delta's oil through political
agitation.
He was arrested last year after threatening to tear Nigeria apart
and will appear in court on Tuesday charged with treason. Asari's
lawyer, Uche Okwukwu, insists his group has no link with the recent
attacks.
AFP
01/15/06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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