Several people were killed as an oil flow station operated by
Royal Dutch Shell in southern Nigeria was attacked by unidentified
ethnic militants on Sunday, while four oil workers abducted four
days ago were still being held by the kidnappers.
"Heavily armed persons ... attacked the SPDC (Shell's subsidiary
in Nigeria) Benisede flow station in Bayelsa State," said a Shell
statement. "The attackers invaded the flow station in speed boats,
burnt down two staff accommodation blocks, damaged the processing
facilities and left."
The statement said Shell had commenced evacuation of personnel
on duty from Benisede, and neighboring flow stations while a Shell
spokesman in Lagos said some people were injured as soldiers there
exchanged fire with the invaders.
"Some people were injured during the attack. I don't have the
number, but we have moved to (the oil city of) Warri for medical
attention," the spokesman told Xinhua. "The Benisede flow station
(attacked) has been shut since January 11," he added.
The Benisede flow station was one of the four facilities closed
on Wednesday after local militants vandalized a major pipeline
feeding the Forcados terminal. The attack forced Shell to cut
production of 106,000 barrels of oil per day, or five percent of
Nigeria's total output.
A local journalist in Warri however told Xinhua that there were
casualties on both sides during the fight between the soldiers and
invaders on Sunday morning. "Several people were killed, but nobody
has the exact number," she quoted military sources as saying.
The attack came four days after armed men, riding in three
boats, stormed Shell's EA oil field offshore Nigeria's southern
coast, taking hostage four workers, a Briton, an American, a
Bulgarian and a Honduran who were working for the firm's two
subcontractors, Tidex and Ecodrill.
The four were still being held by the alleged kidnappers
belonging to a previously unknown group, who calls itself the
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.
The group said that they were not out for cash ransom but to
bring the issues of resource control in the impoverished delta,
where the majority of Nigeria's oil is produced, to the front
burner.
The group also demanded the release of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha,
former governor of Bayelsa state who was impeached and arrested in
December for money laundering, and Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a local
ethnic militia leader who faces treason charges.
"We are capable and determined to destroy the ability of Nigeria
to export oil or other petroleum products for that matter," the
group said in a statement to the media.
"For the safety of its citizens, the United States and other
European nations with citizens on our soil will do well to advise
these individuals to leave immediately."
Nigeria is the biggest oil producer in Africa with a daily
output of 2.5 million barrels, while Shell accounts for half of the
country's oil production.
(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2006)
