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BEIJING - Chinese state-controlled oil company CNOOC Ltd. said Monday it is paying $2.3 billion for a 45 percent stake in a Nigerian oil field in its first major investment since its failed bid to take over Unocal Corp. last year. The deal adds to a multibillion-dollar string of foreign acquisitions by Chinese oil companies, which are aggressively pursuing energy supplies to fuel China's booming economy. The agreement, which requires approval from the Nigerian and Chinese governments, covers a deep-water area of the oil-rich Niger Delta region, CNOOC said. It said the area includes the Akpo oil field discovered in...

Situation in Nigeria For a country that produced nearly 2.4 million barrels of oil (NYSEARCA:USO) per day just a few months ago, Nigeria is facing some really serious issues. A militant group called the Niger Delta has disrupted the country's 2.4 million b/d of production by blowing up pipelines, hassling producers, and threatening to destroy additional oil producing facilities. As a result, Nigeria's oil production has fallen from 2.4 million b/d to 1.4 million b/d and further pressuring a growing nation more and more reliant on its oil as revenue. Nigeria is a fast growing country. Its economy is the...

The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) were a major driver of the rally in oil markets over the past several months, as the outage of roughly 600,000 barrels per day helped push up crude oil prices. In June, a 30-day ceasefire between the NDA and the Nigerian government led to a few weeks of relative calm, and Nigeria’s oil minister said that the country was able to bring back a large chunk of the disrupted supply, bringing output up from 1.4 million barrels per day to 1.9 mb/d at the end of June, but still down from the 2.2 mb/d Nigeria...

In an early Wednesday attack, Niger Delta militants have blown up two Chevron oil wells in Warri, leading a shut down in the wells and promising further output drops for Nigeria. The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) have claimed responsibility for the attack via their Twitter feed, not that they “blew up Chevron oil well RMP 23 and 24 [at] 3:44 am this morning.” These are Chevron’s Bibi oil wells, run by Chevron Nigeria Limited. The militant group also noted that it had a “heavy presence of 100 gunboats, 4 warships and jet bombers,” and that the attack was meant “to...

A militant group has however since February 2016 been making headlines through their capacity to destroy oil infrastructure. Their attacks have driven Nigeria’s oil output to near a 22-year low. Contrary to popular opinion, the group, Niger Delta Avengers, NDA for short, according to them is not just made up of Niger Deltans but has support from other parts of Nigeria, namely Northern, Western and Eastern part of the Country with the sole purpose of crippling the Nigerian Economy until their demands are met. According to reports, Diplomats and security experts say the group has shown a level of sophistication...

Shell has evacuated nearly 100 essential oil personnel from a major production facility in the Niger Delta, following a series of attacks from a newly formed militant group that has vowed to renew the fight abandoned after a 2009 amnesty deal. Some 98 Shell personnel were airlifted from the Shell-operated Eja Oml 79 oil production facility in the Niger Delta over the weekend, bringing into question the facility’s 90,000 barrel-per-day production capacity. The facility is run by Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Corporation). The evacuations come after militants of the Niger Delta Avengers attacked an offline oil platform...

ABUJA, April 14 — Nigeria’s main militant group, the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), on Sunday threatened to perpetrate attacks on Islamic institutions in the west African country from next month. The group, in an electronic message to journalists, said its attacks will be code-named “Operation Barbarossa”, aimed at saving Christianity in Nigeria from annihilation by the Boko Haram sect, which has been attacking churches and media and security outfits since 2009. MEND said when hostilities against Islamic institutions begin on May 31, it will target mosques, pilgrimage camps, large congregations in Islamic events and assassination of...

Since the past few weeks, British Petroleum has been attempting to plug the oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Latest figures suggest that BP is losing about 40,000 barrels of oil a day. Response to the spill has been a huge media, public and government attention. It is now estimated that the cost of cleaning up the spill is about US $1 billion. A new report in the United Kingdom Observer by John Vidal reveals a sharp contrast between the response to the Gulf of Mexico's spill with the daily oil spill in Nigeria's Niger Delta. The report says...

LAGOS (AFP) - Unrest in Nigeria's southern oil region the Niger Delta, the theatre of a spate of kidnappings in recent months, is set to continue through the elections scheduled for April, analysts and security experts say. "I see violence in the delta staying at the current levels right through these elections", a Lagos-based risk consultant told AFP. The people of the delta complain that while their region generates 95 percent of Nigeria's foreign currency earnings, they have little to show for this in terms of development or living standards. A leading security contractor cited the country's "North-South sectarian divide...

Abuja, Nigeria (AHN) - The Nigerian military has launched several raids against oil militants, a few days after they killed 17 soldiers in the Niger Delta. Militants say the army swept through an oil producing community of the region with crushing strength. A militant group dubbed the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said, "In light of this attack on a helpless community, we are at present considering reciprocal action against the military or oil installations in Rivers [State]." A local army spokesman, Sagir Musa, has denied the report saying, "There is no truth in the...

LAGOS, Nigeria - Security forces raided five villages in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta, leaving 15 people dead and homes ransacked and burned, residents and militant leaders said Thursday. The security forces said the raids were part of an effort to combat attacks on multinational oil operations in the Niger Delta. Troops in speedboats with mounted machine guns raided the villages of Sunny Zion, Idegbagbene, Odiogbogbene, Opia and Ogbinbiri between Sunday and Wednesday, said Maj. Said Hamed, spokesman for the region's 3,000-strong military-police task force. He was unable to confirm whether anyone was killed in what he described as a "cordon-and-search"...

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - A speedboat full of gunmen attacked a boat carrying oil workers in Nigeria's violence-wracked delta region, killing two Americans, the army said Saturday. A Nigerian army spokesman, Maj. Said Ahmed, said the workers died Friday evening in the Niger Delta, where the bulk of the country's oil is pumped. Ahmed did not identify the men or their employer, saying "details are still sketchy." However, U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco said two American contractors were missing, along with two Nigerian sailors and two civilian boatmen. A third American, a ChevronTexaco employee, was reported hospitalized in stable condition with...

LAGOS, Nigeria - Gunbattles between rival tribal militias have killed at least 20 people in Nigeria's southern oil port city of Warri, forcing the authorities to impose a nighttime curfew, witnesses and police said Saturday. Fighting between ethnic Ijaw and Itsekiri rivals that erupted on Friday night continued into Saturday, with the rattle of automatic weapons sending residents fleeing. By afternoon, police and troops in armored vehicles had restored some order, but at least 20 dead lay in the streets, according to one witness. "I counted 12 bodies on one street alone and later saw an additional eight bodies removed...

We are appalled by the revelation made by the Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha that the federal government has been subjected to pressure to deploy United States (US) Marines to the Niger-Delta region. The US marines are to come and protect American oil companies' installations in that restive region. According to the governor at a forum on Sea Piracy and Oil Pipeline vandalisation in Yenagoa, the federal government has lost patience with the menace of oil installation vandalisation and the measures introduced to curb it. As a result, in his words; " even the Americans are asking to be allowed...