Barely 24 hours after it attacked Chevron’s main power line at the Escravos terminal, the Niger Delta Avengers, on Thursday night, blew up crude oil and gas pipelines operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation around Batan community in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State.
Local residents told Saturday PUNCH that multiple explosions were heard, a situation they said threw people of the area into serious panic. A senior military officer confirmed the incident to one of our correspondents.
The NNPC on Friday said its pipeline transporting crude from Escravos to Warri had been damaged.
The Escravos-Warri pipeline, which was re-commissioned in April, was attacked early in the year and last week.
When contacted by one of our correspondents, the spokesperson for the NNPC, Mr. Garba-Deen Mohammed, said, “The NNPC pipeline, bringing crude from Escravos to Warri, was the one that was affected. But we don’t know the extent of the damage. Our engineers are right now trying to assess the extent of the damage.”
The Niger Delta Avengers had on Friday morning via its Twitter feed said, “At 11:45pm on Thursday, Niger Delta Avengers blew up other NNPC gas and crude trunkline close to Warri. Pipeline that was heavily guarded by military.
“To the IOCs, indigenous oil companies and Nigerian military, watch out, something big is about to happen and it will shock the whole world,” the group said in another tweet.
It added, “The Niger Delta stakeholders’ meeting is an insult to the people of Niger Delta. What we need is a Sovereign State not pipeline contracts.”
The group had on Thursday claimed responsibility for the attack on Chevron’s main power feed at the Escravos terminal, which shut down the US firm’s onshore operations.
The Avengers, who gave oil firms until end of the month to leave, said they wanted independence for the Niger Delta, and have intensified attacks in recent weeks, pushing the nation’s oil output to its lowest in more than 20 years.
Currently, four Nigerian crude export grades — Qua Iboe, Bonny Light, Brass River and Forcados — are under force majeure.
All of these grades except for Qua Iboe are under force majeure as a direct result of the militant attacks.
The PUNCH reported on Friday that the Federal Government had met with a select group of militants from the restive Niger Delta as a result of the ongoing attacks on oil pipelines in the region.
Source: Punchng
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