The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) announced, on Monday, that they have "stormed" the Alkari flow station complex, operated by Shell, and that their "destructive sweep" against oil facilities in Rivers State is set to continue.
During MEND's attack on the flow station, on the second day of this two-day-old "war," the militia group managed to set fire to it and, as the movement claimed: "razed it too the ground."
A day earlier, MEND had warned all international oil workers in the Niger Delta region to evacuate from their position at their facilities because it planned to: “bring these structures to the ground.”
Shell confirmed the attack upon its Alakiri flow station, gas plant, and field logistics base, southwest of Port Harcourt and reported that one security guard was killed, and four people wounded.
Caroline Wittgen, a spokeswoman for Shell, said in a written statement: "SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria) is saddened by this fatality and our thoughts are with the family of the late station guard."
Meanwhile, an industry source said that more than 100 oil staff, from various companies, had been evacuated from their work sites in the region.
A statement from the terrorist militia group said that: "The foolhardy workers and soldiers who did not heed our warning perished inside the station," (referring to the Shell run complex).
Security has tightened and become increasingly important in oil-rich southern Nigeria since MEND emerged in early 2006; multiplying attacks, kidnapping foreign oil workers and sabotaging both land and offshore facilities.
The terrorist group has caused Nigeria to not only lose one quarter of its oil production, but also to surrender its place in Africa as the biggest crude oil producer. That honor has now gone to Angola.
The Anglo-Dutch oil giant's facility was set alight around midnight with the use of dynamite and other explosives. Lieutenant-Colonel Musa Sagir, the military’s spokesman, gave the official government line which appeared to overlook the reported fatality: "The attack was beaten back."
Lieutenant-Colonel Sagir said that armed men who arrived on a dozen, or so, speedboats had exchanged fire with government troops in the second attack on a foreign oil installation in 24 hours.
He also passed-off the declaration of war by MEND as militants' "propaganda."
However, the attack failed to make any influence upon the oil market, where crude prices plunged to seven-month lows below $93 dollars on the back of weaker prospects of energy demand amid an increasingly tightening global financial crisis.