- STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Miltants destroy Shell pumping station, pipeline in oil-rich Niger Delta
- Deadly battles between militants and miltary; civilian casualties
- Militants want government to give more oil-industry money to poor regions
- Attacks on oil infrastructure have reduced a quarter of Nigeria’s daily production
Niger Delta rebels ratchet up oil-related violence
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s main militant group said Wednesday that it had destroyed an oil-pumping station and a pipeline crossing southern Nigeria in a rare daylight attack extending violence in the restive region into its fifth day.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC owns this oil-pumping station, seen in a file photo, in the Niger Delta.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an e-mail that it had destroyed the pipeline. If confirmed, it would be the group’s second attack in a 24-hour period.
The group earlier said it attacked an oil-pumping station overnight, destroying the flow station run by the local unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC after battling security forces protecting the site.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa confirmed the incident, saying that eight boatloads of militants attacked the Shell facility with bombs, dynamite and hand grenades. Shell officials had no immediate comment.
Violence has flared across Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta oil region in recent days with a series of rare ground battles between MEND and Nigerian troops who have tended to avoid confronting one another in the Niger Delta’s vast system of rivers and creeks.
On Saturday, the military task force charged with calming the region launched a deadly attack on a militant base camp with landing craft, helicopters and airplanes.
The militants have since retaliated by sending raiding parties from their camps deep into the mangrove swamps to target military personnel and oil infrastructure.
At least nine militants and several members of the armed forces have been killed. There have also been civilian casualties.
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In Wednesday’s e-mailed statement, the militants called for the resignation of a top local government official and for a state of emergency to be declared in the region. They warned soldiers and oil workers that more attacks were planned and named two massive off-shore oil export facilities as potential targets.
The militants say they have been agitating for the last three years to force the federal government to send more oil-industry revenues to their areas in the Niger Delta, which remain deeply poor despite five decades of crude production.
Their attacks on oil infrastructure have trimmed nearly one quarter of Nigeria’s daily production, helping send oil prices to all-time highs in international markets.
A full-blown civil war, however, would be a nightmare scenario for the oil industry, since large-scale battles could leave the country’s network of wells, pipelines and export terminals in tatters and insecurity would prevent repairs. Some oil industry officials say that daily production could fall quickly to zero.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/09/17/nigeria.oil.ap/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
