Nigerian navy attacked by gunmen

15.10.08

Nigerian navy vessels guarding the country's main crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals were attacked by gunmen in speedboats on Wednesday, according to Nigerian military and security sources. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The assailants hit gunboats guarding Bonny Island in the Niger Delta, home to an LNG terminal whose exports make up almost 10 percent of world supply and to Nigeria's largest crude oil export facility, managed by Royal Dutch.

"The intention was likely to surprise our troops, capture arms, ammunition and if possible snatch our gunboat," a spokesman for the joint military taskforce in the delta stated.

He said that navy gunboats close to the LNG terminal had been attacked by six speedboats but that the gunmen were repelled. The spokesman added that a member of the taskforce was injured and a number of the attackers were killed when two of their boats were sunk.

The assault in the hub of Africa's biggest oil and gas region is the first since the area's largest militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), announced a ceasefire last month after a plea from elders. The ceasefire came after six straight days of attacks in the eastern delta which resulted in Shell warning it could not guarantee to meet oil export obligations from Bonny.

Industry officials say persistent insecurity, as well as continual funding problems preventing joint ventures with the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), are causing a stagnation of oil production in the world's eighth-biggest exporter.

Militants in the Niger Delta have shut down approximately a fifth of Nigeria's oil production since early 2006 with a campaign of pipeline bombings and strikes on oil facilities, but the country's LNG exports have mostly avoided the violence.