Nigerian rebels step up oil field attacks
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Thursday, June 18, 2009
U.S. oil giant Chevron has become the main target for Nigerian rebels in a campaign of violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta that has reduced output.
If the production cutbacks continue at the rate they have been in recent months, Nigeria, once Africa's largest oil producer, will face a serious economic crisis. The United States, a major customer of Nigerian crude, will see its fuel imports slump at a time when global demand makes it difficult to find alternative sources of supply.
Richard Moncrieff, West Africa director of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels think tank, recently warned that if no resolution to the conflict is found soon, "the Delta risks sliding deeper into conflict. Insecurity could spread further across the Gulf of Guinea." Other major producers in the region are Equatorial Guinea and the former Portuguese colony of Sao Tome and Principe.
The gulf has become a major oil production center. Most of its output from the deepwater fields is shipped directly across the Atlantic, primarily to the United States. As Middle East oil supplies become more problematic, the Americans are increasingly dependent on crude from the Gulf of Guinea.
The main Nigerian rebel group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, claimed Monday that it had blown up a Chevron pumping station. It was the fifth attack on the company in less than a month. MEND warned that its next target was Chevron's tank farm at the Escravos export terminal on the West African nation's Atlantic coast