Nigerian militants cut deeper into oil output

Ethnic militants cut deeper into Nigerian oil supply on Friday when US-based Chevron shut a second production platform as a safety precaution after an armed group stormed a nearby facility.
The militants have threatened to blow up oil facilities across the world's eighth largest exporter after their leader was arrested on Tuesday, and Western oil companies have withdrawn dozens of workers from vulnerable areas.
Chevron shut the 20,000 barrel-per-day Robertkiri platform on Friday, bringing the total impact of the crisis to 28,400 barrels a day, or 1 percent of Nigerian output.
"We shut Robertkiri based on our assessment that it was under imminent threat," a Chevron spokeswoman said. Oil prices are near record highs due to hurricane damage in southern United States, and the disruption to exports of high quality crude from Nigeria, its fifth largest supplier, will stretch supplies further.
The Chevron spokeswoman had little information on the situation at the Idama platform but said the 100 armed militants who invaded it on Thursday, forcing its closure, were no longer there.
"It was never really occupied," she said. "A group of people came demanding that we close it down, so we closed it down and everybody left."
Workers were evacuated from the platforms by helicopter.
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell withdrew about 50 workers from three oil and gas facilities on Thursday, a Shell official said, but output was maintained by a skeleton staff.
The rebel Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) threatened to dynamite oil facilities across the southern delta region unless their leader, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, was released.
"We will kill every iota of oil operations in the Niger Delta. We will destroy anything and everything. We will challenge our enemies in our territory and feed them to the vultures," the NDPVF said in a statement.
It also advised all foreigners to leave the region.
A government spokesman in Port Harcourt said the NDPVF was just a handful of people making dramatic threats and did not constitute an organised fighting force.
Asari campaigns for self-determination of his Ijaw tribe, the largest in the delta, and argues that the colonial treaties that created the union with the rest of Nigeria are fraudulent.
The government has called him an oil thief and gangster.
On Thursday, a high court ordered Asari's detention for another two weeks pending charges of treason, which can carry the death sentence, and unlawful assembly.
After three days of sporadic street protests, the situation in Port Harcourt, the delta's largest city, was calm on Friday amid a heavy troop and police presence. Western oil companies advised workers, particularly expatriates, to exercise caution.