Nigeria pipeline attack forces Shell to cut output

ABUJA (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell said on Sunday it had shut down three pumping stations in Nigeria’s Niger Delta after a key crude oil pipeline was sabotaged.

Although there has been no claim of responsibility, the attack occurred a day after Nigeria’s main militant group MEND called off a three-month-old ceasefire and threatened to unleash “an all-out assault” on Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry.

A spokesman for MEND (the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) has not yet to responded to e-mails for comment.

Shell said the Trans Ramos Pipeline, located in Nigeria’s southern Bayelsa state, was sabotaged on Saturday causing some oil to spill into the creeks of the Niger Delta.

“The leak, confirmed to have been caused by sabotage, has stopped with the shutdown of three flow stations yesterday,” said a company spokeswoman in Nigeria.

Reuters