Nigeria's MEND Claims Responsibility for Shell Attack

By Dulue Mbachu and Alexander Kwiatkowski

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main militant group in Nigeria's oil region, said its fighters destroyed a Royal Dutch Shell Plc flow station in a third day of attacks against oil installations.

``The Alakiri flow station has been completely destroyed,'' Jomo Gbomo, a spokesman for the group also known as MEND, said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg today.

Militants in speed boats raided the Alakiri facility overnight with rocket-propelled grenades and dynamite, Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, a spokesman for the joint military task force, said by phone from the oil industry hub of Port Harcourt. Shell evacuated about 100 staff from the station, Reuters reported, though a company spokesman in Nigeria was unable to confirm this.

The latest attacks started on Sept. 13 when Nigerian troops and militants clashed in the Elem-Tombia district, south of Port Harcourt. The militants said the military had launched an air and marine offensive against its positions and declared an ``oil war'' targeting all oil installations in the region that produces nearly all of Nigeria's oil.

The latest attacks have been concentrated in Nigeria's Rivers state, which is proving to be ``the least stable'' of the Delta region, according to Antony Goldman, an independent U.K.-based analyst specializing in Nigeria. ``The absence of legitimacy creates a vacuum that one group or another will fill.''

`Perished Inside'

MEND reiterated its call on oil workers to leave the Niger Delta, saying ``foolhardy workers and soldiers who did not heed our warning perished inside'' the Alakiri facility.

Shell is investigating reports of the attack, according to company spokesman Rainer Winzenried. The Alakiri flow station is located between Port Harcourt and the Bonny export terminal, he said in a phone interview from The Hague today.

Shell last week extended so-called force majeure on Bonny light exports, which were disrupted after an attack in July. Force majeure is a legal clause that allows producers to miss contracted deliveries because of circumstances beyond their control.

Further attacks were launched yesterday on Shell's Soku gas plant and Chevron Corp.'s Robertkiri flow station among other installations, MEND said. The military and Chevron confirmed the attacks while Shell said it was investigating the reports. MEND says it's fighting on behalf of the inhabitants of the Niger Delta, who are yet to share in the oil wealth of the region. Attacks by armed groups in the region have cut more than 20 percent of Nigeria's oil exports since 2006.

Although Nigeria has Africa's biggest hydrocarbon reserves, with more than 30 billion barrels of crude and 187 trillion cubic feet of gas, it has dropped behind Angola as the continent's biggest oil exporter because of militant violence. The west African country is the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dulue Mbachu via the Johannesburg bureau at abolleurs@bloomberg.net Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net