The Nigerian navy and Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell said on Monday they had beefed up security after a threat by armed militants to destroy a major offshore storage and export facility.
Shell said that it had credible evidence that ”criminal elements” had begun making preparations to destroy the Sea Eagle, a mammoth floating oil station designed to process 170 000 barrels of crude oil per day.
The Sea Eagle, which is permanently moored 15 kilometres off the western Niger Delta, has a capacity of 1,4 million barrels of crude and any attack could provoke an economic and environmental catastrophe.
”The navy is not treating the threat lightly. We have intensified patrol and surveillance around the area. There is no cause for alarm,” said Nigerian navy spokesperson Sinebi Hungiapuko.
For two months sporadic unrest in the western Niger Delta has disrupted oil production. At the height of the crisis, more than 40% of Nigeria’s exports were cut off, but offshore facilities were spared.
In addition to being Africa’s biggest oil producer, Nigeria is the world’s sixth most important exporter, with an OPEC quota of more than two million barrels per day, much of it destined for the United States.
On Sunday, Shell took out a full-page advertisement in the Nigerian press to warn the militants that the firm was aware of their alleged plans to attack the facility and would be ready for them.
”The advert is a strategy to tell them that we are aware of the threat and we have taken stern security measures to forestall it,” said a Shell spokesperson, who asked not to be named.
The Sea Eagle began work in December last year. It is one of a new generation of floating oil terminals known as Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels, and gathers oil from the EA offshore field of light, low-sulphur crude.
It also processes 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
”Information reaching us reveals that anytime from now, the vessel could be boarded by force of arms and set on fire,” the Shell statement said.
”Well meaning community contacts reveal that, as part of these plans, drums of petrol have been acquired, awaiting the signal to attack.”
An uprising in March by ethnic Ijaw militants sent tremors through an international oil market already on edge over the then war in Iraq, and caused Nigeria to deploy hundreds of troops into the Delta swamps.
Eight military servicemen, five oil workers and reportedly scores of villagers were killed in the clashes, after Ijaw fighters rebelled against their alleged political marginalisation.
Relative calm has returned to the area, and production by Shell and US major ChevronTexaco is progressively returning to normal.
Last week the firms said they were back at two-thirds capacity.
Two US warships — refitted 40-metre World War II patrol boats — have been donated to Nigeria by the Pentagon and last week were deployed to the western Delta to protect the oil industry.
The Shell spokesperson said the Sea Eagle’s would-be attackers claim the firm has not employed enough local labour on the project, but insisted that an agreement had been reached with moderate community leaders.
”It has nothing to do with Ijaw militants. It is about some people in nine communities that are not patient enough for a full implementation of a memorandum of understanding,” he said.
Shell said that 34 jobs for local people had been created by Shell contractors since the EA field came on line, and that 90 people had been hired from the nine nearest communities on ”surveillance” contracts.
The firm has also delivered 15 boats, three buses, 21 motorbikes and 21 million naira (161,228 dollars/146,138 euros) in micro-credit to develop small businesss in the area, the firm said.
”So, where’s the grouse? These hoodlums allegedly plotting to blow up the FPSO are criminal elements bent on pursuing their personal gains, and do not have the interests of the communities at heart,” the statement said.
Nigeria, a country whose 120 million people live mainly in poverty despite its oil wealth, relies on oil exports for more than 96% of export revenue and is developing the natural gas sector. – Sapa-AFP