OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lagos | Monday 9.30pm.
THE Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell has evacuated staff from the most volatile parts of the Niger Delta after a previously unknown group threatened the safety of foreign oil workers, Shell officials said on Monday.
Armed youths last week seized 15 flow-stations belonging to the oil giant, which is the largest oil operator in the Niger Delta, shutting off 378,000 barrels per day in exports and forcing it to declare force majeure on exports.
On Friday, a group calling itself the Federated Niger Delta Izon Communities (FNDIC) issued a statement warning foreigner oils workers they faced attack if they did not leave the Delta area by Monday.
Nationals of countries involved in the oil business in the Delta were also threatened in the statement.
“For now, we are demanding that all foreigners working in oil companies are advised to leave the affected areas,” it said. “Embassies concerned are equally advised to withdraw their nationals.”
The first target of the group is believed to be Shell, which is the largest oil operator in Nigeria with an output of 825,000 bpd. “We are taking the threat seriously,” a Shell official in Lagos said.
An official at the US group Texaco, which also operates in the Delta, said a top-level meeting was being held at to discuss the threat. An official at another US group, Mobil, said that the group believes it is not targeted by the warning.
Besides Shell, Texaco and Mobil, other companies operating in the area include US group Chevron and Italy’s ENI, which was targeted in attacks last week.
* MORE than 100000 people have been left homeless in western Nigeria after torrential weekend rains overwhelmed two dams. Dozens of villages were submerged by the flooding in western Kwara state, some 375km north-east of Lagos. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
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