The militant group said on Twitter that it blew up the energy company’s RMP 23 and RMP 24 crude oil wells in the Niger Delta at 3:44 AM.
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Nigerian security forces have killed and injured an unknown number of people in an offensive in the oil-producing south where militant attacks have halved petroleum production, residents and the military said Monday. Nigeria budgeted for 2.2 million oil barrels per day this year, but dropped its projections to 1.4 million bpd because of the recent attacks, according to the country’s junior oil minister, Emmanuel Kachikwu.
Akhaine said the government seemed to have no means of stopping the Niger Delta Avengers.
Buhari will visit a Niger Delta area called Ogoniland to launch a much-delayed programme to clean up areas heavily polluted by oil spills, the official said.
That effort was criticized for not addressing the underlying issues fueling the militancy, namely the joblessness, poverty and pollution in many communities where people live next to oil production sites. One reason why the government is cracking down on militants is Nigeria’s struggle under a lower-priced oil market, and pipeline attacks are something authorities can ill afford at a time when the state needs consistent oil revenue to stay afloat.
Another group, known as the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, has seized oil from pipelines, selling it on the market to other nations. The president, a Muslim from the north, would be making his first trip to the Niger Delta region in the predominantly Christian south.
However, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reported on Tuesday that the government “had deployed an armada of five warships, 100 gunboats and fighter jets to the creeks of the Niger Delta in repsonse to the continued bombing of oil and gas pipelines by Niger Delta Avengers”.
“In Gbaramatu, Delta State the people, especially women and children are in serious danger of mass death if they are not rescued from the rampaging military officers”.
Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole on Wednesday threw his weight behind President Muhammadu Buhari’s handling of the crisis engulfing the Niger Delta region.
“The military is not unmindful of the campaign of calumny against our soldiers by paid agents claiming that soldiers are harassing members of the public while performing their constitutional responsibility”, Mr. Abubakar, a brigadier-general, said.
“I am aware that there was a dynamite attack on the pipeline”, Nengi James, chairman of the Nembe Oil and Gas Committee, told Agence France-Presse.
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The Nigerian Navy on Wednesday said it has arrested three persons in connection to the vandalism and other criminal activities in the Niger Delta region.
