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Shell Confirms Third Attack On Nigerian Operations

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

JUNE 21, 2009, 11:01 A.M. ET

LONDON (Dow Jones)–Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) Sunday confirmed an attack against an offshore oil platform, the third militant operation against its Nigeria subsidiary in 24 hours.

The main militant group in this rare incident in Nigeria Sunday claimed three attacks against Shell in the Niger Delta’s southeast Rivers state.

Unlike the western Delta, Rivers state had been relatively spared from a recent wave of unrest and the attaks come despite a proposed presidential amnesty to militants.

“There have been all in all three attacks against installations of SPDC’s (Shell Petroleum Development Co.) Eastern operations,” a Shell spokesman said in an e-mail.

“SPDC is continuing to investigate the impact on facilities, environment and production,” he added.

In an e-mailed statement, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said militants “lashed out at the Shell Off-shore Ofirma oil fields today, Sunday, June 21, 2009 at about 0400 hours [local time] blowing up jacket A in the process.”

The structure is currently engulfed in fire,” it added.

Earlier Sunday, MEND, said in a statement that the Shell pipelines at Adamakiri and Kula locations were attacked, which was later confirmed by Shell.

Attacks on offshore platforms -part of unrest that has shut down up to 1 million barrels-a-day of output in Africa’s richest oil basin- tend be less common than pipeline sabotage as they require strong boat capability.

In June last year, militants attacked Shell’s 200,000-barrels-a-day, deep offshore Bonga platform hundreds of kilometers from the coast, which had been previously considered out of their reach. However, Shell doesn’t operate any deep offshore platform in the Eastern Delta.

-Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 77 601 777 36

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