Oil & Gas
Shell Puts Out Pipeline Fire in Nigeria
By
Dec 26, 2005, 11:57

Royal Dutch Shell said on Friday that a pipeline fire caused by a dynamite attack that left 11 people dead in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta had been put out and repairs were under way.

Shell had complained that it was losing about 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) as a result of the attack to its pipeline on Tuesday morning, 50 kilometers southwest of the oil city of Port Harcourt.

It also declared a force majeure and then halted oil supplies from the Bonny Terminal in the west African country, the world's eighth largest oil producer and the largest in Africa. Nigeria has six export terminals, two of them operated by Shell.

A Shell spokesman told Xinhua on Friday that four pipelines, all of them in the same area, were affected by the attack on Tuesday morning. Only one was operated by Shell, two belonged to the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation; another to the Nigerian Gas Company.

"The fires have been put out," confirmed another company spokesman. "We are now repairing the pipelines in preparation for resumption of production."

Shell is the biggest player in Nigeria, accounting for almost half of Nigeria's daily exports of 2.5 million barrels. The majority of the country's oil is produced in the southern restive Niger Delta.

Following the Shell fire and another in Edo state that claimed five lives, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday reaffirmed his determination to provide "adequate protection" for persons and oil installations in the Niger Delta.

"We will not abandon this country to brigands. Criminals must be chased, caught and punished," Obasanjo told the defense and security chiefs at Thursday's emergency meeting, ordering that all defense and security personnel be placed on "high alert."


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