The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta said on July 28 it had attacked two major crude oil pipelines in the South of the country belonging to Royal Dutch Shell.
"In keeping with our pledge to resume pipeline attacks within the next thirty days, detonation engineers backed by heavily armed fighters from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta ... sabotaged two major pipelines in Rivers state of Nigeria," the group said in an e-mailed statement.
One of the attacks as been confirmed by Shell, hitting a major trunk pipeline in Nembe Creek, while the location of the second has yet to be confirmed.
Prior to the attack, the country’s oil output had been rising back to its OPEC quota of 2.1mbpd, after dropping early this year to a low of 1.7mbpd. Last week saw production rise above 1.9mbpd
The news helped push up NYMEX crude to US$125.41/bbl (a gain of US¢89/bbl) and London Brent crude to US$124.18/bbl (up US¢92/bbl)
Reported by Reuters, the BBC and Agence France Presse [an error occurred while processing this directive]
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