Attacks reduce Nigeria oil exports

WARRI, Nigeria – Militants launched attacks across Nigeria’s troubled delta region Saturday, blowing up oil installations and seizing nine foreigners, including three Americans. The West African nation’s crude oil exports were cut by 20 percent.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which claims to be fighting for a greater local share of Nigeria’s oil wealth, said the attacks were in retaliation for assaults this week by military helicopters.

In an e-mail to the Associated Press Saturday, the group claimed responsibility for the raids, including one in which militants abducted three Americans, two Egyptians, two Thais, one Briton and one Filipino.

The attacks began before dawn, when more than 40 militants overpowered military guards and seized the foreigners from a barge belonging to Houston-based oil services company Willbros, which was laying pipeline for Shell, a Willbros official said on condition of anonymity. In Houston, Willbros spokesman Michael Collier confirmed nine employees had been taken.

“We have not had any communication with those involved. Right now, we’re in the process of contacting the families. The well-being of our people is foremost and we’re trying to keep this situation under control as best we can,” he said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Noel Clay called for the hostages’ unconditional release and said: “We’re working with the Nigerian government and talking with them about this.”

In other, apparently coordinated violence, militants blew up a major Shell crude oil pipeline near a facility by the western delta’s Chanomi Creek, Shell official Donald Boham said.

The violence took its toll on oil exports in Nigeria, Africa’s leading oil exporter and the United States’ fifth-largest supplier, which normally produces 2.5 million barrels a day.

A fire was put out on a Royal Dutch Shell platform that loads the company’s tankers in the western delta, but the Forcados terminal’s normal operations could not continue, halting the flow of 400,000 barrels a day.

Shell said it had also evacuated an oil platform off its Atlantic coast as a precaution, shutting off an additional 115,000 barrels a day.

Shell has yet to restore 106,000 daily barrels lost when a major pipeline supplying the Forcados terminal was hit last month by a similar wave of attacks and hostage takings.

The militants have accused foreign oil companies of providing their helicopters and airstrips for military operations in the region. They said they would now target all helicopters in the delta, including civilian aircraft.

On Saturday, the militants reiterated warnings that foreign oil workers must leave the delta.

Last month, militants held four men – from the United States, Britain, Bulgaria and Honduras – for 19 days before releasing them unharmed.

Over the past two decades, oil companies in the area have faced frequent disruptions. Any hostages have been freed within days after ransom payments.