UK: Brown under fire on fuel as Nigeria attack lifts oil price

Gordon Brown will face renewed pressure this week to suspend the fuel duty rise due to come into force in October as an attack on an oil pipeline in Nigeria yesterday pushed up crude prices yet again.

No help is likely to come from Opec. The president of the cartel, which controls almost 40 per cent of the world’s supply of oil, denied responsibility yesterday for spiralling oil prices and ruled out an increase in production in the near future.


Although there was a dip from the record high of $135 a barrel at the start of last week, yesterday’s sabotage of a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline in the Niger Delta by an anti-government group pushed prices back up beyond $133. Shell confirmed the incident on the Nembe Creek trunkline, resulting in the closure of some of its production in the area. Sabotage is a growing problem for the production industry, and the oil price. Nigeria is the world’s eighth biggest exporter, but production has dropped by a quarter since 2006 due to problems caused by militants. Shell alone has seen production cut by up to 164,000 barrels per day this year due to sabotage of pipelines and pumping stations.

Independent