Nigeria’s state-owned oil company said it has enough fuel to meet domestic demand for 40 days after pipeline sabotage by militants crippled all its refineries.
To deal with the attacks, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. is “partnering with security agencies to stem the tide,” Levi Ajuonuma, a spokesman for the company, said in an e-mailed statement today.
Operations were halted at refineries in the southern cities of Port Harcourt and Warri and the northern city of Kaduna, with a combined capacity for 445,000 barrels of crude a day, the company, known as NNPC, said yesterday. Managing Director Austen Oniwon sought deployment of troops to protect the pipelines at a meeting with the army high command on Dec. 21.
The Niger Delta Liberation Force, an armed group fighting government troops in Nigeria’s southeastern oil region, said on Dec. 6 it ruptured a pipeline belonging to the state oil company. Armed attacks in the Niger River delta, home to the country’s oil industry, cut about 28 percent of Nigeria’s oil exports between 2006 and 2009, according to Bloomberg data.
“We want to inform President Goodluck Jonathan that the army cannot protect the nation’s oil facilities,” Mark Anthony, a spokesman for the rebel group known as NDLF, said in an e- mailed statement today. “NDLF bombs are hanging on many pipelines and other oil facilities across Niger Delta region, ready for detonation at any time we decide.”
Nigeria is the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni SpA run joint ventures with the state-owned oil company that pump most of the West African nation’s oil.
A recent surge of attacks by militants in the region, who are demanding a greater share of the delta’s oil riches, follows a period of calm when thousands of fighters disarmed under a government amnesty plan.