A group of militant organizations calling itself a Coalition of Niger Delta Agitators has released a list of oil targets that include fields and infrastructure operated by Exxon (NYSE: XOM), Chevron (NYSE: CVX), and Total. The militants will target more than two dozen fields, they said, as well as other facilities.
The Coalition, which doesn’t seem to include the Niger Delta Avengers, said the federal government had failed to address adequately the grievances voiced by local communities and after three weeks of consultations, they had decided to give Abuja 90 days to take urgent measures to restructure the oil industry in the Niger Delta and tighten resource control.
By restructuring and resource control, the group seems to mean returning control of the oilfields to the local people and relocate the oil companies operating in the Delta, although how the locals would manage the fields remains a mystery. Otherwise, the Coalition said, "there would be no one Nigeria. We shall officially declare Niger Delta Republic after 90 days, if the Federal Government fails to implement the above demands."
Last week, The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA)—the militant group responsible for most of the 2016 attacks on Nigeria’s oil infrastructure—threatened to unleash the deadliest round of attacks on Nigeria’s oil sector—"in a few days time".
"This round of attacks will be the most deadly and will be targeting the deep sea operations of the multinationals which include Bonga Platform, Agbami, EA Field, Britania-U Field, Akpo Field; amongst others littered across the deep waters of the Niger Delta region," the militants said in a statement on their website.
The threat has not yet materialized, but it follows an earlier warning of a "brutish, brutal and bloody" end of the ceasefire in the oil-rich Delta, which the NDA released last November. These two, coupled with the latest from the Coalition of Niger Delta Agitators, indicates tensions in Nigeria’s oil region are being rekindled, and it is possible that the threats could be followed by actions.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
