A crude oil pipeline in Bayelsa State, southern Nigeria, operated by the local subsidiary of Italy’s Eni, Nigerian Agip Oil, has been attacked by suspected militants.
The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) reported the attack on Sunday.
The attack comes just days after President Muhammadu Buhari assured oil companies operating in the Niger Delta that the government was taking all necessary actions to protect strategic assets in the region from vandals and criminals.
Resurgence Of Militancy
He told the Global Director (Upstream) of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, Mr Andrew Brown, in Abuja that he had directed the Chief of Naval Staff to re-organise and strengthen the military Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta, to deal effectively with the resurgence of militancy and the sabotage of oil installations.
Attacks on facilities in the last few weeks have driven Nigeria’s oil output to a more than 20-year low.
A spokesman for the NSCDC, Desmond Agu, told Reuters news agency that the Agip pipeline was attacked in the early hours of Sunday, around 12:30 a.m. local time.
“A gang of armed youths … vandalised pipeline along Azuzuama axis of the Tebidaba-Brass pipeline with dynamite and ignited fire on the line,” he said.
Mr Agu said that one of the suspected attackers had been arrested.
Eni, which operates in Nigeria through its subsidiary Nigerian Agip Oil Company, could not be immediately reached to comment on the attack.
On Friday, the Bayelsa State Government and some leaders of most of the communities in the state held talks and condemned the activities of militant groups vandalising the nation’s oil pipelines.
They agreed to do their best to ensure that the militants pay for their crimes.