Nigeria oil output to ‘hang in balance’ – US intel

Nigeria is no longer able to ensure security in the delta region where it pumps most of its crude, and oil production from the African country will “hang precariously in the balance” for some time, a US.government analyst said on Wednesday.

Charles Dragonette, senior global maritime analyst at the Office of Naval Intelligence, said an attempt by President Olusegun Obasanjo to alter the constitution so that he can seek a third term would further inflame violence in the delta.

Ijaw ethnic militants, who want a greater share of the region’s oil wealth, have stepped up attacks on oil installations and started kidnapping foreign oil workers in the southern Niger Delta, a vast tangle of mangrove-lined creeks in the south of the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter.

“The government at this point probably cannot do anything. Nigeria may have now have lost all ability to control the situation there for at least the short term,” Dragonette told a maritime security conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“Nigeria’s delta situation is not going to improve, certainly not any time soon. The production of oil in Nigeria will hang precariously in the balance for the foreseeable future.”

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