28 Nov 2006 12:15:08 GMT
Nigeria violence
More By Tom Ashby
LAGOS, Nov 28 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell will soon take a first step to resuming 500,000 barrels per day of Nigerian oil output by sending inspectors to assess pollution and damage to facilities in the western Niger Delta, company sources said on Tuesday.
Shell
“The agreement was that Shell can go back to the western Niger Delta where the security incidents have been,” a Shell source said, asking not to be named.
“It means we will go in and assess the extent of the damage to the facilities and determine the cleanup we have to do.”
The closure of the Forcados and EA oilfields in the western delta set a new standard for militancy in the Niger Delta.
It also cut output by Africa’s biggest oil producer by about a fifth, contributed to a surge in world oil prices and played havoc with Nigeria’s budget.
The militant group attending the meeting was the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), which has been linked to the group that claimed responsibility for the February attacks — the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
FNDIC spokesman George Timinimi said Shell had agreed to provide power generators, while the government had promised water, roads and hospitals to riverine communities around the abandoned facilities as part of the deal.
“There is nobody who does not like development so if Shell makes an effort I don’t see MEND deterring it,” Timinimi said.
MEND has consistently threatened to execute any oil workers found returning to the abandoned oilfields.
MEND, whose leadership is unknown, says it is fighting for more regional control over the delta’s oil resources and compensation for decades of oil pollution.
It responsed sarcastically to the latest developments.
“We will visit them at the appropriate time to formally welcome them back to those installations,” MEND said on Tuesday in an email to Reuters.
The planned inspections, by teams comprising company and government officials, are a prerequisite for Shell to resume pumping from the Forcados oilfields in the swamps around Warri and the offshore EA oilfield.
Some of the lost production, including the 115,000 bpd EA field, could be restarted within weeks after inspections, company sources said. But other facilities that were damaged in the attacks or vandalised since then could take several months to return to full volume, the sources added.
The February attacks marked an intensification of the conflict in the vast wetlands region of southern Nigeria, where militancy fuelled by poverty has been on the rise for decades.
Dozens of foreign oil workers have been kidnapped from oil facilities and residential compounds since the February attacks, mostly by ransom-seekers. Militants have also fought sporadic firefights with troops.
Shell has said it does not expect a significant increase in output from the western delta this year, and many analysts expect violence to intensify further in the run-up to general elections in April.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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