Nigerian militants threatened on Sunday to halve the country's current oil output by cutting another 1 million barrels a day this month in their campaign to gain more autonomy for the southern delta region.
The militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta are holding two US hostages and one Briton. Their attacks last month reduced output from the world's eighth largest exporter by 455,000 barrels a day, or one fifth.
This lowered output to 2 million barrels a day before the latest threat by the militants, who want more local control of the delta's oil resources.
"God willing we hope to reduce Nigeria's export by a further one million barrels for the month of March," the militants said in an email.
Royal Dutch Shell has shut down its oilfields on the western side of the Niger Delta, a vast maze of mangrove-lined creeks in southern Nigeria, after a string of bombings and kidnappings on February 18.
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