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ExxonMobil evacuates staff from Nigerian oil terminal
By Joel Olatunde Agoi
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 04 26 06
The US energy giant ExxonMobil has evacuated non-essential staff from Nigeria's largest oil export terminal amid fears it could be attacked by armed militants, a company spokesman said Tuesday.
ExxonMobil's Qua Iboe facility in southeastern Nigeria handles exports of 650,000 barrels per day, although the firm's Nigerian spokesman Yemi Fakayejo told AFP that output had not yet been hit by the latest scare.
"We have evacuated non-essential workers from the Qua Iboe export terminal following an intelligence report that Niger Delta militants were planning an attack on oil facilities and personnel," he said.
"This is a precautionary step. ... There is no disruption in oil production and exports. Production is up and running and offshore and essential staff are at the export terminal, working," Fakayejo added.
A spokesman for one of the rebel groups operating in the delta, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said ExxonMobil "has good reason to" pull out its staff and warned remaining workers could face attack.
"We have been invited by our brothers in Akwa Ibom and we will get there soon enough. The essential staff left behind should be aware that we have no intention of taking prisoners," he said in response to an e-mail query.
Over the past three months separatist guerrillas have carried out a series of attacks on Niger Delta oil facilities, forcing foreign multinationals to cut Nigeria's exports of around 2.5 million barrels per day by around a quarter.
Thus far ExxonMobil's facilities, most of which apart from Qua Iboe are offshore, have been spared, while pipelines operated by Shell, ChevronTexaco and ENI have been blown up and 24 members of security forces there killed.
Fakayejo said that there was no evidence in the latest intelligence report that his firm was specifically threatened, but "didn't want to take chances".
"That is why we have asked non-essential workers to stay at home, at least for today," he told AFP by telephone.
Deborah White, a senior energy analyst with bankers Societe Generale, said that it was known that the firm had been threatened by militants. "Today's news says ExxonMobil is taking the threat seriously," she said.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has reached out to disgruntled members of the delta's Ijaw ethnic group with a promise of regional development, but the most hardcore of the militant groups have rejected his offer.
Last week a car bomb exploded in a barracks in the oil city of Port Harcourt, killing at least two civilian bystanders and injuring six more.
"We are going to carry out a similar attack somewhere in the Niger Delta this week," said a statement from MEND, one of three illegal armed groups to have claimed the Port Harcourt bomb.
Another militant organisation, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) of jailed separatist leader Mujahid Dokubo Asari, has issued specific threats against ExxonMobil and Qua Iboe in the past.
The NDPVF announced on April 15 that it had called off a ceasefire.
Violence in the Niger Delta has contributed to surging world oil prices, along with the tensions in Iran, which has refused to rule out cutting oil exports in response to pressure on it to abandon nuclear research.
World prices edged higher on Tuesday, but remained below 74 dollars. New York crude prices matched a record high 75.35 dollars per barrel on Monday, while Brent North Sea oil struck a historic 74.79 dollars last Friday.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil exporter, but little of the country's export revenue trickles back to the Niger Delta, and most of the region's 22 million people live in poverty in overcrowded cities and polluted fishing villages.
AFP 04 25 06 1913 GMTCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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