MEND Continues Assaults on Pipelines

Nigerian militants said on Saturday they had destroyed another major oil pipeline in the Niger Delta after a week of the most intense attacks against Africa's biggest oil and gas industry for years.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it had attacked a pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell at Buguma Front in Rivers state late on Friday and warned its campaign was not over.

A Shell spokeswoman in Nigeria said the company was investigating the claim, but gave no further details.

The Anglo-Dutch giant, the company hardest hit by the violence, declared a second force majeure on Bonny Light oil shipments on Friday following the week's unrest but gave no details on production.

"MEND will continue to nibble every day at the oil infrastructure in Nigeria until the oil exports reach zero," the group said in an e-mailed statement.

MEND fighters have hit pipelines, flow stations and oil and gas facilities in the Niger Delta every day since last Sunday, when the group declared an "oil war" in response to what it said were military ground and air strikes.

Shell operates onshore in Nigeria through its SPDC joint venture, of which it holds 30 percent while state oil firm NNPC holds 55 percent. Local subsidiaries of France's Total and Italy's Agip hold the rest.

Shell had already been forced to extend a force majeure on Nigerian Bonny Light exports, which frees it from contractual obligations, following an attack on a major pipeline in July.

Such intensity of attacks across the eastern Niger Delta, a vast network of mangrove creeks, makes assessing the impact difficult as engineers scramble to investigate exactly how much production has been hit in each location.

Nigerian government officials have said production has fallen by 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) over the past week, and estimate the country's current output at 1.95 million bpd.

INTENSE AND SUSTAINED

The attacks this week have largely been limited to Rivers state in the eastern Niger Delta but MEND has warned it may extend its campaign to other areas on- and off-shore.

The violence has been the most intense and sustained since MEND first launched its campaign of sabotage in early 2006, and has included relatively rare direct confrontation with the army.

The world oil market, which has largely focused on the fallout from the credit crisis, has found some support from the situation. Prices traded above $100 on Friday.

MEND said it had launched this week's campaign -- an operation it calls "Hurricane Barbarossa" -- in response to air and naval attacks on one of its bases in Rivers state.

"When (Rivers state governor Rotimi) Amaechi took over, the government just said that they must kill me and my boys," one militant leader, Ateke Tom, told Reuters television this week.

"That is why we are fighting back," he said, surrounded by heavily armed fighters.

The militants want greater development and a better living environment after decades of neglect in the delta, where impoverished villagers live among polluted land and water.

The unrest is fuelled by a lucrative trade in stolen oil worth millions of dollars a day.

Security experts say the region will never be stable unless an alternative source of income can be found for the gunmen, businessmen, politicians and international shippers all taking their slice of the illegal profits.

(Reuters)