PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has ordered Nigeria's military to crack down hard on the new militant group the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) who have carried out several attacks on oil installations over the last week.
On Thursday, NDA attacked Chevron’s platform in Warri, Delta State and on Friday blew up pipelines linking Warri and Kaduna refineries. Following the attack on the Okan offshore production platform on Wednesday by the militants, Chevron said it had lost about 105,000 barrels of oil production in three days.
According to the company, the incident had affected about 35,000 barrels per day of its own net crude production, or about 15% of its output in the country. Chevron’s spokeswoman, Isabel Ordonez, said that approximately 35,000 bpd of Chevron’s net crude oil production in Nigeria is impacted.
Deji Haastrup, Chevron's general manager, policy, government and public affairs, added: “This is a very difficult time for the country because it needs the revenue it can get from oil production. Incidents such as this have the potential to impact that, so we do hope that it does not seriously affect the country.”
Workers on the pipelines said that before the attack, they had pumped 28,000 barrels from the Escravos Terminal on Thursday. Both Warri and Kaduna refineries also got a delivery rate of 903,000 barrels just before the attacks.
According to the workers, following the attacks, they counted about 10 military air patrols over the pipelines on Saturday. However, they added that it had been difficult for fire fighters to quench the fire from the bombed pipelines.
In a swift response, President Buhari instructed the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Air Force to stop the activities of the new group. It was learnt that the president also ordered the chief of naval staff, Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas, to ensure that all waterways and platforms were protected against further attacks by the militants.
Acting director of defence information, Brigadier Rabe Abubakar, said: “We have the order from the president and we are monitoring the activities of the new group. All efforts will be made to bring out those behind it.
“The suspects who perpetrated the first vandalism were apprehended and paraded the day on Thursday and these ones are not going to be different. We are going out on our operation to stop and apprehend them in accordance with the presidential directive.”
He added that what they are doing is complete economic sabotage and economic terrorism. In April, President Buhari had threatened that his administration would descend heavily on oil and gas pipelines vandals as well as other saboteurs the same way the nation’s armed forces were dealing with members of the Boko Haram sect.
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