Niger Delta militants on Wednesday blew up two
additional facilities belonging to Chevron Nigeria Limited, making it the
fourth time the oil major’s assets would be attacked in less than a month.
Amid the recent upsurge in attacks on oil and gas
installations in the area, some international oil companies and the Nigerian
National Petroleum Companies have seen their facilities damaged, with the
latest being Chevron.
A militant group that
calls itself the Niger Delta Avengers, which has claimed responsibility for
most of the attacks since the beginning of the year, destroyed two vital
Chevron’s Bibi oil wells, RMP 23 and RMP 24, in Warri North Local Government
Area of Delta State on Wednesday.
One of our correspondents
learnt that the incident occurred around 3:44am near Egbema, an Ijaw enclave in
Warri North, and the wells have been shut down.
A military source and an
employee of Chevron, who did not want their names mentioned, confirmed the
incident, adding that the attack led to heavy spillage in the creeks.
The source also said that
a team of engineers had been sent to assess the damage and stop further spread
of the spillage.
When contacted, the
Manager, Communications, Chevron Nigeria, Mr. Sola Adebawo, said, “We will not
comment on security issues.”
On May 4, Chevron’s Okan
offshore platform came under attack, a development that resulted in the shutdown
of the facility.
Okan is the nation’s
first offshore production platform located in the Escravos area of Delta State.
Chevron said the damage
to the Okan platform had affected about 35,000 barrels per day of its own net
crude production, or about 15 per cent of its output in the country.
On May 13, a new blast
occurred at a Chevron oil well at the Marakaba pipeline in Warri.
Last week, the NDA
carried out another attack on the oil major’s main power line at the Escravos
terminal, shutting down its onshore operations in the region.
Onshore oil assets in
Nigeria have been attacked for years, forcing the IOCs to reduce their
land-bound operations in the area in favour of more secure offshore projects.
The Head of Energy
Research, Ecobank Capital, Mr. Dolapo Oni, said, “I think the IOCs have genuine
reasons to be worried. As companies that have high safety standards, most major
oil companies are likely to take stringent safety protocols, including reducing
personnel at fields bordering locations that have been hit or could be hit.”
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