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Shell shuts down oil facility
17/02/2006 09:53 - (SA)
Lagos - Royal Dutch Shell shut down an oil facility pumping 37 800 barrels of crude daily in Nigeria's southern oil-rich delta, following a blaze at a nearby oil well, the company said.
The cause of the fire was unknown and is being investigated, company spokesman Don Boham said in a statement late Thursday. "We have informed the relevant government agencies of the incident," Boham said.
Tension has been running high in Nigeria's volatile oil region since a new militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, launched a string of attacks on oil company operations in January and seized four foreign oil workers who were freed after 19 days in captivity.
The group claims to be fighting for local control of oil wealth by inhabitants of the impoverished delta, who accuse joint ventures operated by the Nigerian state and Western oil companies of cheating them out of the wealth pumped from their backyards.
Nigeria, with daily exports of 2.5 million barrels, is Africa's leading oil producer. It is also the fifth-biggest source of US oil imports.
- AP
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