A fire damaged the loading platform attached to one of Nigeria’ biggest oil export terminals Saturday, Shell said, during an attack by armed militants in which nine workers were kidnapped.
“A fire outbreak was reported at the Forcados Crude Oil Loading Platform early this morning,” a Shell spokeswoman said in a statement. She said it was not immediately clear how much damage had been done or what the effect of the fire would be on the terminal’s exports of hundreds of thousands of barrels per day. “Located some 20 kilometres (13 miles) offshore, the platform is the export manifold for crude oil from our Western operations excluding EA. The fire is out and we are investigating the cause and damage to the facility,” she said. In addition, the company reported that it was investigating the cause of an explosion on the nearby Chanomi Creek, where there are oil and gas pipelines. Source : Sapa-AFP /le