Friday, May 27, 2016

Nigeria Delta Avengers attack oil facility, vows to "shock the world"

Niger Delta Avengers, the new militant group that has launched multiple attacks on oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta region, has struck yet again.

The group announced its latest assault on Friday, saying it blew up a gas and crude trunk line belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in Warri, Delta State, late Thursday.

The Avengers announced the attack via its Twitter handle.

The group said that the facility was “heavily guarded” by the Nigerian military, in an apparent attempt to mock the Nigerian armed forces’ capacity to check its activities.

“At 11:45pm on Thursday.@NDAvengers blew up other #NNPC Gas and Crude trunkline close to Warri. Pipeline that was heavily guarded by Military,” the group tweeted.

The NNPC is yet to comment on the attack. Its spokesperson, Garbadeen Mohammed, told PREMIUM TIMES he was still collating information on the incident.

The group rejected a meeting recently convened in Abuja by the federal government, warning of its readiness to carry out an attack that will “shock the whole world”.

“The Niger Delta stakeholder’s meeting is an insult to the people of Niger Delta. What we need is a Sovereign State not pipeline Contracts.

“To the IOC’s, Indigenous Oil Companies and Nigeria Military. Watch out something big is about to happen and it will shock the whole world,” the group said.

The new group has launched several attacks on oil and gas infrastructure since February 2016, demanding a sovereign nation of the Niger Delta people.

On Thursday, the group claimed responsibility for another attack on a gas pipeline belonging to Chevron in Delta state.

“We warned Chevron, but they didn’t listen. NDA just blew up the Escravos tank farm main electricity feed pipeline,” it said.

The militants said the oil facilities were sabotaged following attempts by Chevron to carry out repairs of main Escravos crude oil pipeline it blew up earlier.

A spokesperson for the group, Mudoch Agbinibo, had earlier this month warned the Nigerian government of further attacks if their demands were not met.

Last week, Chevron’s Makaraba crude oil line was attacked on the offshore Okan manifold in the region.

The attack followed previous ones on the company’s facilities at Abiteye, Utunana and Makaraba platforms in Warri South-West area of Delta State resulting in the loss of over 40,000 barrels of oil per day.

The Management of Chevron Nigeria Limited declined comments on Wednesday’s attack.

Sola Adebawo, manager communications and government relation at CNL said the oil firm would not immediately comment.

“We are not able to comment at this time,” Mr. Adebawo said in a text message on Thursday.

Residents in the area said that an explosion occurred on Wednesday night.

Eric Omare, Spokesman for Ijaw Youths Council confirmed the incident but did not provide details.



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