Niger Delta Avengers strikes again, restates vow to bring Nigeria’s oil production to ‘zero’

Niger Delta Avengers, the new militant group that has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks on oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta, continued its disruption of Nigeria’s oil production with the bombing of more crude oil pipelines Thursday.

The group announced the latest attack via its Twitter handle on Thursday evening, saying it blew up “Ogboinbiri to Tebidaba and Clough Creek to Tebidaba crude oil pipelines in Bayelsa State.”

“At about 2:00am today @NDAvengers blew up the Ogboinbiri to Tebidaba and Clough Creek to Tebidaba crude oil pipelines in Bayelsa State.”

The Avengers added that the latest disruption is “in line with our promise to all international oil companies and indigenous oil companies that Nigeria oil production will be zero.”

The group did not say which oil company is operating the pipelines.

The group’s operation had become more audacious in recent weeks as it continued to cripple Nigeria’s oil production, demanding a sovereign nation of the Niger Delta people.

The Avengers had rejected a meeting recently convened in Abuja by the federal government, warning of its readiness to carry out an attack that will “shock the whole world”.

“The Niger Delta stakeholder’s meeting is an insult to the people of Niger Delta. What we need is a Sovereign State not pipeline Contracts.

“To the IOC’s, Indigenous Oil Companies and Nigeria Military. Watch out something big is about to happen and it will shock the whole world,” the group tweeted on Friday.

Last Thursday, it claimed responsibility for an attack on a gas pipeline belonging to Chevron in Delta state.

“We warned Chevron, but they didn’t listen. NDA just blew up the Escravos tank farm main electricity feed pipeline,” it said.

The militants said the oil facilities were sabotaged following attempts by Chevron to carry out repairs of main Escravos crude oil pipeline it blew up earlier.

A spokesperson for the group, Mudoch Agbinibo, had last month warned the Nigerian government of further attacks if their demands were not met.

Two weeks ago, Chevron’s Makaraba crude oil line was attacked on the offshore Okan manifold in the region.

The attack followed previous ones on NNPC, Agip, Shell and other major oil corporations’ facilities across the delta states and it has resulted in the loss of over 40,000 barrels of crude oil per day.