Nigerian militants attacked a gas plant operated by Royal Dutch Shell in the Niger Delta on Saturday and warned of more attacks to come, but the army said it had repelled the raid and killed three gunmen. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the region's main militant group, said its fighters attacked the Utorogu gas plant in Delta state at about 0330 (0230 GMT).
A spokesman for Shell in Nigeria confirmed the attack and said one employee of its SPDC joint venture and two contractors had been hurt but were in a stable condition. MEND, whose attacks in the Niger Delta have shut down more than a fifth of Nigeria's crude oil output over the past three years, called off a five-month-old cease-fire a week ago. It had warned it would strike in Rivers state further east.
"MEND decided on this location (Utorogu) to dispel the false sense of peace and security in Delta state which the governor has been boasting about," it said in an emailed statement. During early 2006 and 2007, militant attacks on industry installations focused on the Niger Delta's western states of Delta and Bayelsa. A significant amount of oil production in the western delta remains shut down because of the sabotage.
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