Shell’s operation remains strong amid attacks in Niger Delta

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Nigeria’s major oil company, on Monday said they were continuing their operations in the Niger-Delta region, while monitoring the security situation in their operating areas.

According to Shell’s spokesman, Precious Okolobo, in a reply to BusinessDay inquiries, “Our operations are continuing (in the Niger Delta). We do not wish to go into details.”

However, the Anglo Dutch oil firm would neither confirm, nor deny evacuating its staff from its operations in the now volatile region.

The terse statement by Okolobo read further: “We continue to monitor the security situation in our operating areas in the Niger Delta and are taking all possible steps to ensure the safety of staff and contractors.”

The Shell statement is being seen probably as a direct reaction to the Sunday statement by the new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) in which they vowed to crumble Nigeria’s oil industry, which is the nation’s economy lifeblood.

The NDA issued conditions to the Federal Government demanding among other things, the review of oil blocs, trial of APC members, apologies from President Muhammadu Buhari, the Department of State Security (DSS) and Timipre Sylva, former Bayelsa State governor over alleged abandonment of late Dipreye Alamieyeseigha, release of Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the immediate implementation of the 2014 national conference, among others.

Meanwhile, the five South-South governors of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have condemned the weekend attack on NNPC/Chevron facilities in Delta State – a valve and 48-inch trunk line supplying crude oil to the Warri refinery.

The governors made the condemnation in Asaba, the Delta State capital at a maiden meeting to re-strategise on the best possible way to unseat the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Edo State and the federal level.

Ifeanyi Okowa, Delta State governor, who briefed newsmen after the meeting, said his colleagues condemned in strong terms, the recent attack on NNPC/Chevron facilities.

“The Chevron gas pipeline vandalism is very unfortunate, we condemn it as a party, and in Delta, and we have already taken it up,” he said.

Okowa also disclosed that the governors had decided to have a meeting with President Buhari on the issue of security in the Niger- Delta region.

According to Okowa, “first is the issue of security, and we decided that there will be the need for us in the South South to have a meeting with Mr. President. Those are issues we are not going to let out until we see the President.”

Meanwhile, insecurity continues to heighten in Rivers State, which is also part of the oil-producing region.

In Ahoada, Rivers State, unknown gunmen, suspected to be cultists, reportedly killed five policemen on Sunday. The area had been a flashpoint of rival cult groups, which have attacked each other in the past four months.

The Rivers police command said on Monday that “we are deeply pained by the senseless and barbaric killing of our colleagues attached to 30 PMF Yenagoa, who were ambushed in the early hours of Monday at Okobie enroute Yenagoa.”

According to Ahmad Muhammad, spokesman of Rivers State Police Command, “the tragedy again demonstrated the enormous calamities we face and witness in the course of our job. We put their lives on the line every day to confront crime and violence in our communities.”

He warned, “we will stop at nothing to bring the perpetrators of this dastardly act to injustice.”