OIL COMPANY Royal Dutch Shell cut back production in Nigeria yesterday after rebels sabotaged a major pipeline, in what analysts fear is a sign of growing political instability in the giant west African nation.
Saturday’s pipeline attack came just hours after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), the main rebel group in the oil-rich southeast, declared it would no longer abide by a ceasefire it agreed to last year.
The group said the government had not delivered promised oil benefits to the Niger Delta’s impoverished people.
The move contributed to a rise in the price of Brent North Sea crude on the London exchange yesterday to $72.32 a barrel, up 86 cents.
Nigeria is one of the world’s major oil producers, but rebel attacks had previously forced it to pump oil at less than capacity. Since the ceasefire was signed last year, its production had jumped from 1.7 million to two million barrels a day. With the attack, production may fall again.
Analysts say the attack is linked to a power vacuum since Nigerian president Umaru Yar’Adua became ill in November and was hospitalised in Saudi Arabia.
Mr Yar’Adua made settling the Niger Delta dispute a priority when he took office in 2007, but little has been done on that score since he became ill.
“Part of the reason for the dropping of the ceasefire by Mend is the drift in [the capital] Abuja,” said Richard Moncrieff, west Africa project director for the International Crisis Group think tank in Dakar, Senegal.
“It could have been avoided if there was better and clearer government direction in Abuja. We need both a strong and a legitimate leader of the country to sort out the country’s multiple problems, of which the Niger Delta is one of the most important ones.”
Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people, has been left rudderless since Mr Yar’Adua fell ill. Rebels who turned in their weapons were granted amnesty last year, but further efforts to spread some of the oil wealth to the Niger Delta have stalled. Those projects were to have included retraining soldiers and development aid.
Mend’s leadership is now in some disarray because several of its leaders accepted the amnesty and were believed to have stopped fighting. Mend said it was not directly responsible for Saturday’s attack, which forced three pumping stations on the Trans Ramos pipeline to shut down, but said it endorsed the move.
“It was certainly a response to our order to resume hostilities by one of the various freelance groups we endorse,” Mend said in an e-mail statement.
Still, when it announced it was withdrawing from the ceasefire, Mend made it clear that it would resume similar kinds of attacks.
“All companies related to the oil industry in the Niger Delta should prepare for an all-out onslaught,” the group said. “Nothing will be spared.”
