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Nigerian militants target fuel tankers with car bomb
By Dave Clark
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 04 30 06
Nigerian separatist militants carried out a car bomb attack on fuel trucks in the Niger Delta on Saturday, they said, and again warned oil companies to evacuate staff from the restive region.
The militants also issued a specific threat to Chinese oil workers, warning Beijing not to invest in the Nigerian oil industry.
A spokesman for the Delta State government, Sunny Areh, confirmed the attack.
He told AFP a Mercedes 190 car had been packed with explosives and that the blast had destroyed four nearby parked cars but caused no casualties.
Brigadier General Alfred Ilogho, commander of a military task force deployed in the delta to counter the rebels, said that a car had exploded close to parked tanker lorries on the outskirts of the oil port of Warri.
"There was an explosion of a car. There weren't any casualties. The place has been cordoned off by soldiers," he said, adding that the blast had happened after dark at a truck stop used by tanker drivers serving Warri's refinery.
A group known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which claimed a previous car bomb in Port Harcourt on April 20, said it had detonated 30 kilogrammes of dynamite using a cellphone as triggers.
"Today at 2125 hours Nigerian time, our operatives in Delta State in the Niger Delta planted and detonated one car bomb amidst petroleum product bridging tankers located close to the refinery," an email statement said.
"This is the last warning to all oil industry workers. This warning goes particularly to tanker drivers and all involved in the petroleum industry in one way or the other," the statement added.
Shortly before the explosion, the group had emailed the media to announce that an attack was about to take place.
MEND has launched a violent campaign against the Nigerian military and the country's huge oil and gas industry to press its demands for the people of the delta to be given control over energy revenues from their region.
Since January, the group's attacks have left at least 24 members of the security forces dead and cut Nigeria's exports of 2.6-million-barrels per day by around a quarter, forcing up world oil prices.
This week Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Abuja and met his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo to discuss, among other things, a greater role for Chinese firms in the delta oil industry.
MEND's statement specifically warned China not to come to their region.
"We wish to warn the Chinese government and its oil companies to steer well clear of the Niger Delta," it said.
"Chinese citizens found in oil installations will be treated as thieves. The Chinese government by investing in stolen crude places its citizens in our line of fire," it added.
Chinese construction companies are already active in the delta, and the country's oil firms have begun to seek exploration contracts. This month the offshore company CNOOC bought a 2.7 billion dollar stake in a Nigerian field.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil exporter, but little of the wealth generated by the industry has trickled down to the citizens of the delta's polluted fishing villages and overcrowded port cities.
Several heavily armed militant groups are competing to generate headlines with high profile attacks on the oil industry. They have demanded the release of jailed local leaders and for regional control of oil contracts.
AFP 29 04 06 2310 GMT
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