Nigeria suspends army attacks for talks with oil militants

The Nigerian army is to reduce its presence in the restive Niger Delta as the government prepares for talks with militants who have attacked oil facilities in recent months, a senior official said Tuesday.

That was a message from the Niger Delta Avengers some hours ago on the Twitter page.

Nigeria’s oil production has fallen by at least half a million barrels per day (bpd), Reuters calculations show, because of militant attacks in the Niger Delta region, most claimed by a new group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers.

The attacks have pushed Nigeria’s oil output to a 20-year low while propelling oil prices to new highs. Gen Mudoch Agbinibo, its spokesperson, the group said while oil from the creeks are used to enrich the Nigerian state, those in the Niger Delta communities live in “terror of poverty, inhumanity and desolate living conditions”.

“At 1:00am today, the up Well RMP 20 belonging to Chevron located 20 meters away from Dibi flow Stattion in Warri North LGA”, was blown up the group said on Tweets this morning.

“This is inline with our promise to all global oil companies and indigenous oil companies that Nigerian oil production will be zero”, NDA said after last week’s attacks.

The militants have told all worldwide oil companies to leave the oil-producing Niger Delta and say they want a greater share of Nigeria’s oil wealth for local communities.

T he Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) made clear they are not prepared to negotiate with the Nigerian government after bombing a Chevron oil well on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian navy announced at a press conference that it has apprehended the coordinator of a series of attacks on NNPC and Chevron facilities, although the identity of the suspect has not been disclosed yet.

“The two-week ceasefire was such that all military operations in the region were supposed to stop to enable government to apply the non-kinetic means of reaching out to the militants”.

The violence over poverty in the region and repeated oil spills has slashed production to 1.6 million barrels per day, well below the budgeted-for 2.2 million bpd, Kachikwu said on Monday.