Armed youths on Tuesday seized a Shell flow station and took 60 workers hostage in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta, the company said.
“After firing some warning shots, the attackers took hold of the security post where they are holding about 60 SPDC [Shell Petroleum Development Company] and contractor staff,” Shell said in a statement.
The company said the attack on a Shell field logistics base attached to the Nun river flow station was carried out by armed youths from the Oporoma community in the delta’s southern Bayelsa State.
It said the flow station had been shut as a result of the incident.
“The Nun river flow station has been shut, resulting in production loss of about 12 000 barrels of oil per day,” it added.
It said there were no casualties, but added that the state government had sent officials to negotiate with the attackers. It did not disclose the identities of the workers taken hostage.
Tensions have flared in recent months in the Niger Delta, which is home to Nigeria’s multibillion-dollar oil and gas industry, but whose inhabitants live on an average of less than $1 a day.
Separatist fighters — as well as organised criminals — have taken up arms against the government and the oil industry, killing scores of security officers and abducting dozens of oil workers over the past nine months.
Security concerns have forced Shell to close dozens of oil wells and rigs and evacuate workers from the volatile region in the past nine months.
Shell, which accounts for around half of Nigeria’s total crude exports, currently loses about 477 000 barrels per day to the unrest in the Niger Delta.
Nigeria, a nation of 130-million people, is Africa’s leading oil producer and the world’s sixth biggest crude exporter with a normal daily output of 2,6-million barrels.
But attacks on oil installations in the region have cut about a quarter of oil production since the start of the year. — AFP