Last week the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta rebels vowed to thwart a 10-billion-dollar trans-Saharan gas pipeline project linking vast reserves in Nigeria to Europe which has been agreed by Algeria, Niger and Nigeria.Nigerian militants said Monday they destroyed a Chevron oil pipeline junction in the latest attack on Nigeria’s key money earner since the government offered an amnesty.
MEND is the strongest of a series of groups fighting in the Niger Delta since 2006. The unrest has reduced Nigeria’s exports to 1.8 million barrels per day from 2.6 million three and a half years ago.
According to the rebels, the manifold controls about 80 percent of the crude that Chevron Nigeria Limited sends to its BOP Crude Loading Platform.
President Umaru Yar’Adua on June 25 offered an amnesty to any rebel in the Niger Delta, the main oil region, who lays down his arms.
No date has been given for the start of work on the pipeline which will be more than 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) long. But the first gas is scheduled to be delivered in 2015.
MEND urged oil firms still operating in the Niger Delta to leave immediately, threatening new attacks.
Source: AHU – David A-O.