Avengers Step Up Their Offensive

The Niger Delta Avengers appear to have stepped up their offensive against Nigeria’s oil industry. In the early hours of today, it blew up the Obi Obi Brass Trunk Line. The pipeline belonging to Agip Eni, according to the Avengers, is Agip’s major crude oil line in Bayelsa State.

That attack would be the third major offensive by the NDA on the nation’s oil pipelines in three days. Even at that, the Punch today reported the bombing of a major pipeline belonging to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, yesterday evening. The incident reportedly happened around the Shalomi Creek in Warri South – West Local Government Area of Delta State.

The intensification of NDA’s activities is happening just when Shell has announced the shutting of one of its two major export lines. The company said it shut the Trans Niger Pipeline because a leakage was discovered. The shut pipeline transports Nigeria’s premium crude, the Bonny Light, to Shell’s Bonny Export Terminal for exportation. The company has disclosed that it is carrying on a joint investigation whose team will comprise its officials, the regulators as well as host communities to establish the cause of the leak.

Shell said, it loses 130, 000 barrels of oil per day as a result of the shut–down. It also claimed that fixing the leak would take a whole week. What SPDC did not say however, was whether or not the Niger Delta Avengers were being suspected as the possible cause of the leak.

While many Nigerians lament the general downturn in the country’s economy as a result of the activities of the militants, the NDA is happy about it all. This morning, it posted a comment on its Twitter handle, where it reacted to reports that foreign refineries who buy Nigerian crude were beginning to look elsewhere to source for inputs because of the fluid situation in the Niger Delta.

The Avengers said: “It is good as foreign refineries stop buying Nigerian oil because the Nigerian state has been robbing the Niger Delta of her oil and gas. We will inform the international communities when we are open for business.”