khad
15th July 2009, 07:34
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gHJyop68FyJkZy4mhXIgmHhzZRvwD99EN5F03
MEND calls 60-day cease-fire 16 minutes ago
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's main militant group says it is calling a 60-day cease-fire immediately in response to the release of an ailing rebel leader.
Henry Okah was freed Monday just hours after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta set fire to an oil depot and loading tankers in the country's economic center, Lagos.
Five people were killed in the group's first attack outside the Delta region.
The insurgents said in a statement Wednesday that they hope the cease-fire will create an "enabling environment" for negotiations.
Okah was released under a government amnesty.
Rebel attacks on oil installations and kidnapping of foreign oil workers have cut output of Africa's biggest oil producer by a quarter and often affect the world price of oil.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.The MEND:
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ("MEND") is a militant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant) indigenous people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_people)'s movement dedicated to armed struggle against the exploitation and oppression of the people of the Niger Delta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_Delta) and the degradation of the natural environment by foreign multinational corporations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_corporation) involved in the extraction of oil in the Niger Delta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_in_Nigeria) and the Federal Government of Nigeria (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Federal_Government_of_Nigeria&action=edit&redlink=1). MEND has been linked to attacks on foreign-owned petroleum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum) companies in Nigeria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria) as part of the Conflict in the Niger Delta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_in_the_Niger_Delta).
MEND's stated goals are to localize control of Nigeria's oil and to secure reparations from the federal government for pollution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution) caused by the oil industry. In an interview with one of the group's leaders, who used the alias Major-General Godswill Tamuno (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Godswill_Tamuno&action=edit&redlink=1), the BBC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC) reported that MEND was fighting for "total control" of the Niger Delta's oil wealth, saying local people had not gained from the riches under the ground and the region's creeks and swamps."MEND cuts Nigeria's oil output by one-third
http://allafrica.com/stories/200907140188.html
Daily Independent (http://www.independentngonline.com/) (Lagos)
Nigeria: Country's 40 Billion Barrels Reserve Target Threatened
Adeola Yusuf
13 July 2009
Lagos — The Nigeria's drive to grow its oil reserves to 40 billion barrels in 2010 is under threat, as the Niger Delta crisis hampers further exploration activities in the oil-rich region.
Explorationists in Nigeria have already stated that the crisis was capable of truncating the nation's quest to grow.
Nigeria has recently suffered many attacks on oil installations, which have plummeted the country's production level to below 1 million barrels per day.
President of the National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE), Victor Agbe-Davies, said in an interview with ***Daily Independent ***that unless something is urgently done, the country's dream of 40 billion barrels target will not be realised.
Development in the exploration activities, he said, was capable of truncating the nation's quest to grow.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) in the last three months extended its fight against the Federal Government to the oil companies.
In all, about 132 oil fields were said to have been shut while the country is currently losing about 1 million barrels of crude oil per day.
Nigeria's current production is within the region of 1.1 barrel per day of crude and thus puncturing the country's quest to realise 4 million barrel of crude oil by 2010.
A recent document by the Department of Petroleum Resources gave the performance chart of the nation's downstream and upstream industry for the first quarter of the year, January to March, saying the nation's average daily production rate was 2,080,132 bpd and 2,024,418bopd for the months of January and February 2009.
174 fields, the agency said, were on production while 127 remained shut-in.
Continuing the document said that the non-reconciled production deferment for January and February 2009 was 1,101,488; translating to 475,705bopd deferred in January while 625,783bopd was deferred in February.
It however, blamed the large deferments figure on the militants' activities and operational hitches.
MEND had recently attacked Afremo B oil platform of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in retaliation for the alleged invasion of an Ijaw community in Warri South-west Local Government Area of Delta State by the military Joint Task Force (JTF) penultimate Thursday.
MEND had three Sundays back attacked Shell pipelines at Adamakiri and Kula, both in Rivers State in the Eastern Niger Delta.
It said it had also attacked the Afremo offshore oilfields, which it believed were operated by Shell, and which it said were 14 miles (23 kilometres) from an export terminal through which oil from Shell's Forcados fields was pumped.
The attacks are the first to strike Rivers State, the Easternmost of the three main states in the Niger Delta, since the militants launched their latest campaign of sabotage following a military offensive in the western delta last month.
Persistent attacks by Mend over the past three years have cut oil output in the OPEC member, the world's eighth biggest oil exporter, to less than two thirds of its installed capacity of 3 million barrels per day.
MEND first burst onto the scene in 2006, knocking out more than a quarter of Nigeria's oil output -then around 2.4 million bpd -in a matter of weeks.
Italian oil giant, Agip, had said that a pipeline attack in Bayelsa State had halted production of around 33,000 barrels of oil and 2 million cubic metres of gas per day.
Similarly, Shell said some oil production had been halted following an attack on the Trans Ramos pipeline penultimate Wednesday at Aghoro-2 community in Bayelsa State.
Chevron shut down its operations around Delta State after Mend's first attack in its latest campaign on 24 May, halting around 100,000 bpd.
Shell Petroleum Development Company, it said recorded the highest volume of deferment of 434,280bopd due to insecurity and gas flaring restriction while Mobil lost 87,752bopd due to attack in QIT.
According to the agency, during the period under review, the average capacity utilization of the nation's refineries was a paltry 18.9percent.
Nigeria's output, according to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Odein Ajumogobia, had dropped drastically.
"It is something we are all sad about. Nigeria has a production capacity of 3.2 million barrels per day. Today, we are down to about less than half of that in terms of production, with over one million barrels per day down in production shut-ins," the minister lamented.
The unrest, analysts believed had cost the country its position as the seventh largest supplier of hydrocarbon to the United States of America, with the latest disclosure by the United States Energy Department Africa and Middle East Affairs, George Parson, that Angola was now the fifth supplier of hydrocarbon to the US, while Nigeria had dropped to number eight from its seventh position.
The period after the first quarter witnessed a large scale attacks on oil installations, kidnapping of oil workers, withdrawal of oil workers from field and the deployment of soldiers to the zone, 12 of whom were killed in the fracas.
MEND calls 60-day cease-fire 16 minutes ago
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's main militant group says it is calling a 60-day cease-fire immediately in response to the release of an ailing rebel leader.
Henry Okah was freed Monday just hours after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta set fire to an oil depot and loading tankers in the country's economic center, Lagos.
Five people were killed in the group's first attack outside the Delta region.
The insurgents said in a statement Wednesday that they hope the cease-fire will create an "enabling environment" for negotiations.
Okah was released under a government amnesty.
Rebel attacks on oil installations and kidnapping of foreign oil workers have cut output of Africa's biggest oil producer by a quarter and often affect the world price of oil.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.The MEND:
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ("MEND") is a militant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant) indigenous people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_people)'s movement dedicated to armed struggle against the exploitation and oppression of the people of the Niger Delta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_Delta) and the degradation of the natural environment by foreign multinational corporations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_corporation) involved in the extraction of oil in the Niger Delta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_in_Nigeria) and the Federal Government of Nigeria (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Federal_Government_of_Nigeria&action=edit&redlink=1). MEND has been linked to attacks on foreign-owned petroleum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum) companies in Nigeria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria) as part of the Conflict in the Niger Delta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_in_the_Niger_Delta).
MEND's stated goals are to localize control of Nigeria's oil and to secure reparations from the federal government for pollution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution) caused by the oil industry. In an interview with one of the group's leaders, who used the alias Major-General Godswill Tamuno (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Godswill_Tamuno&action=edit&redlink=1), the BBC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC) reported that MEND was fighting for "total control" of the Niger Delta's oil wealth, saying local people had not gained from the riches under the ground and the region's creeks and swamps."MEND cuts Nigeria's oil output by one-third
http://allafrica.com/stories/200907140188.html
Daily Independent (http://www.independentngonline.com/) (Lagos)
Nigeria: Country's 40 Billion Barrels Reserve Target Threatened
Adeola Yusuf
13 July 2009
Lagos — The Nigeria's drive to grow its oil reserves to 40 billion barrels in 2010 is under threat, as the Niger Delta crisis hampers further exploration activities in the oil-rich region.
Explorationists in Nigeria have already stated that the crisis was capable of truncating the nation's quest to grow.
Nigeria has recently suffered many attacks on oil installations, which have plummeted the country's production level to below 1 million barrels per day.
President of the National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE), Victor Agbe-Davies, said in an interview with ***Daily Independent ***that unless something is urgently done, the country's dream of 40 billion barrels target will not be realised.
Development in the exploration activities, he said, was capable of truncating the nation's quest to grow.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) in the last three months extended its fight against the Federal Government to the oil companies.
In all, about 132 oil fields were said to have been shut while the country is currently losing about 1 million barrels of crude oil per day.
Nigeria's current production is within the region of 1.1 barrel per day of crude and thus puncturing the country's quest to realise 4 million barrel of crude oil by 2010.
A recent document by the Department of Petroleum Resources gave the performance chart of the nation's downstream and upstream industry for the first quarter of the year, January to March, saying the nation's average daily production rate was 2,080,132 bpd and 2,024,418bopd for the months of January and February 2009.
174 fields, the agency said, were on production while 127 remained shut-in.
Continuing the document said that the non-reconciled production deferment for January and February 2009 was 1,101,488; translating to 475,705bopd deferred in January while 625,783bopd was deferred in February.
It however, blamed the large deferments figure on the militants' activities and operational hitches.
MEND had recently attacked Afremo B oil platform of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in retaliation for the alleged invasion of an Ijaw community in Warri South-west Local Government Area of Delta State by the military Joint Task Force (JTF) penultimate Thursday.
MEND had three Sundays back attacked Shell pipelines at Adamakiri and Kula, both in Rivers State in the Eastern Niger Delta.
It said it had also attacked the Afremo offshore oilfields, which it believed were operated by Shell, and which it said were 14 miles (23 kilometres) from an export terminal through which oil from Shell's Forcados fields was pumped.
The attacks are the first to strike Rivers State, the Easternmost of the three main states in the Niger Delta, since the militants launched their latest campaign of sabotage following a military offensive in the western delta last month.
Persistent attacks by Mend over the past three years have cut oil output in the OPEC member, the world's eighth biggest oil exporter, to less than two thirds of its installed capacity of 3 million barrels per day.
MEND first burst onto the scene in 2006, knocking out more than a quarter of Nigeria's oil output -then around 2.4 million bpd -in a matter of weeks.
Italian oil giant, Agip, had said that a pipeline attack in Bayelsa State had halted production of around 33,000 barrels of oil and 2 million cubic metres of gas per day.
Similarly, Shell said some oil production had been halted following an attack on the Trans Ramos pipeline penultimate Wednesday at Aghoro-2 community in Bayelsa State.
Chevron shut down its operations around Delta State after Mend's first attack in its latest campaign on 24 May, halting around 100,000 bpd.
Shell Petroleum Development Company, it said recorded the highest volume of deferment of 434,280bopd due to insecurity and gas flaring restriction while Mobil lost 87,752bopd due to attack in QIT.
According to the agency, during the period under review, the average capacity utilization of the nation's refineries was a paltry 18.9percent.
Nigeria's output, according to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Odein Ajumogobia, had dropped drastically.
"It is something we are all sad about. Nigeria has a production capacity of 3.2 million barrels per day. Today, we are down to about less than half of that in terms of production, with over one million barrels per day down in production shut-ins," the minister lamented.
The unrest, analysts believed had cost the country its position as the seventh largest supplier of hydrocarbon to the United States of America, with the latest disclosure by the United States Energy Department Africa and Middle East Affairs, George Parson, that Angola was now the fifth supplier of hydrocarbon to the US, while Nigeria had dropped to number eight from its seventh position.
The period after the first quarter witnessed a large scale attacks on oil installations, kidnapping of oil workers, withdrawal of oil workers from field and the deployment of soldiers to the zone, 12 of whom were killed in the fracas.