Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | Three oil pipelines have been sabotaged in Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta, with MEND claiming responsibility. |
Implications | MEND's spokesman Jomo Gbomo has stated that the attacks will continue indefinitely, but has promised that the group will release on 30 May the six hostages that it has been holding since last week’s attack on Chevron facilities. |
Outlook | MEND's attacks raise the likelihood that oil companies operating in the region are set to experience further difficulties unless Nigeria's new government can reach some form of agreement with the militant organisation. |
MEND Returns with a Vengeance
The militant organisation MEND has carried out attacks on three pipelines in Bayelsa State in Nigeria's oil producing region. MEND confirmed in an email to Global Insight this morning from the group's spokesman Jomo Gbomo that it is responsible for the attacks. The group has sent a series of communications over the last 12 hours: they first pledged "to cripple the Nigerian crude oil export industry…with attacks on pipelines around the entire Niger Delta in the coming days" and this warning was followed hours later by confirmation that MEND had destroyed three oil pipelines. Agence France-Presse reported that Welson Ekiyor, spokesman for Bayelsa state government, confirmed that attacks were carried out overnight on three pipelines in the state; one at Brass and two in the Akasa area. Gbomo then sent a further email confirming the names of the six foreign workers that MEND was holding hostage; providing photographic evidence of the six captives.
MEND to Continue with Attacks on Oil Industry
The return to action by the militant group comes after several months of little activity from MEND. The well-organised militant group, which uses the international news media to argue its case for greater control of the region's oil resources, has promised to give President Olusegun Obasanjo a violent send off before he steps down at the end of the month. Gbomo stated that MEND would "continue indefinitely with attacks on all pipelines, platforms, and support vessels", but added that the organisation would release the hostages (four Italians, one U.S. citizen, and one Croatian) unconditionally on 30 May; the day after Obasanjo’s handover of the presidency to Umaru Yar’Adua, who won the presidential election last month that was condemned by all domestic and international observers as hugely flawed.
Outlook and Implications
It was peculiar that MEND played no part in Nigeria's elections; until last week (when it attacked Chevron facilities), the militant group had been almost anonymous in 2007 after establishing itself as the most notorious of the insurgent groups in the Niger Delta last year. It would appear that MEND has not in fact disappeared and will engage the new administration, led by Yar’Adua and his vice-president Goodluck Jonathan, a former governor of Bayelsa State. MEND has not been appeased by the inclusion of a Delta politician in the senior echelons of the new government and it is crucial that the incoming administration brings with it a new mode of dealing with the crisis. President Obasanjo, despite the economic and political reforms implemented during his two terms in office, has failed badly in the Delta and there must be renewed vigour shown by Yar’Adua and his team.
MEND has promised to attack oil company facilities, kidnap employees, and sabotage pipelines. The group carried out an attack on Chevron last week, which led to 15,000 barrels per day (b/d) of crude being shut-in at the Funiwa oilfield and also to the abduction of the six oil workers. MEND has also warned Shell not to bring production back at the Forcados terminal where the Anglo-Dutch supermajor have been shutting in production for over 15 months; Shell had stated in recent months that it aims to bring back production if conditions allow in the next few months. It seems that MEND will now focus its attention on continuing to disrupt the operations of the oil companies operating in the region.
The next three weeks will be crucial for the future of Nigeria's upstream sector as the world awaits Obasanjo and Yar’Adua’s response to the recent actions of MEND. It is vital for the oil companies that have experienced an extremely challenging last 12 months that the new Nigerian government does not order a hasty military onslaught in the Delta. Firm dialogue is needed between the two parties or else war will continue to be waged in the region and oil companies and their workers will remain threatened by working in a deteriorating security situation that will affect Nigeria's aim of reaching its production target of 4 million b/d by 2010. Nigeria is currently shutting in at least 500,000 b/d of crude.