MEND Keeps Its Promise

IJAW militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has claimed responsibility for weekend's bomb attack on Warri refinery.

The blast occurred Saturday night in a car parked inside the Petroleum Products Tankers Park close to the refinery but no casualty was reported.

MEND's claim is the second in 10 days as the group had claimed responsibility for the April 20, bomb explosion at an army barracks in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Reacting to the blast, Chief of Army Staff, (COAS), Lt. Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, said the military is ready to dialogue with militants on the issues at stake to enthrone lasting peace in the region.

The group, reports said, had e-mailed media houses before the explosion, announcing that the attack was going to take place.

Reiterating its demand for the region's control over oil, MEND said that it used a mobile phone to detonate 30kg of dynamite in the bombing.

It said the attack was a warning to all people working in the oil industry in Nigeria. It also made specific threats against China, which has just signed a major oil deal with Nigeria.

MEND said the bombing was a final warning to oil workers and future attacks would be directed against individuals.

"We have resolved to take our campaign out of the creeks (so) that every Nigerian may feel the true pains of the Niger Delta peoples," it said in an e-mail sent to the media.

It was referring to the mangrove-lined creeks of the Delta where many oil installations are located and where militant attacks, acts of sabotage and crude oil theft are frequent

"We wish to warn the Chinese government and its oil companies to steer well clear of the Niger Delta ... The Chinese government by investing in stolen crude (oil) places its citizens in our line of fire," MEND said.

Earlier this week, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Nigeria and signed deals to explore Nigerian oilfields in return for a commitment to invest $4 billion in infrastructure to help develop Africa's most populous country.

MEND has staged a series of kidnappings and attacks against the oil sector in the world's eighth-biggest exporter that has forced companies to cut production by 550,000 barrels per day.

This has contributed to recent spikes in world oil prices, including last week's record high at over $75 per barrel.

The militants, who have abducted a total of 13 foreign oil workers this year and held some of them for several weeks, have warned all oil workers to leave the delta and vowed to halt exports completely. They have now freed all the hostages.

The use of car bombs is unusual in Nigeria but it was MEND's second such attack in nine days after a bombing close to an army barracks in Port Harcourt, a major city in a different part of the Niger Delta. That attack killed two civilians.

Soldiers guarded the site of the Warri explosion on Sunday and it was impossible to get close, but from a distance the blackened carcasses of five tanker trucks were visible.

The explosion, which was heard 4 km (2.5 miles) away, shattered the windows of the drivers' office 100 meters away and flung a chunk from one of the vehicles into the building where it crashed through a wall.

The Warri refinery has not been functioning for several months and the tanker trucks were empty at the time of the blast, apparently helping avoid a major fire.

A little-known group that first appeared in December, MEND is a coalition of militias which the government accuses of involvement in a lucrative trade in stolen crude oil.

But its demands - which also include the release of two jailed leaders from the region and compensation for oil spills - are shared by many activists in the area, where most people live in poverty despite the riches being pumped from their land.

In a related development, Gen Agwai, who waved the olive branch when he visited the Rivers State Governor, Dr. Peter Odili in Port Harcourt on Sunday, said that the offer should not be misconstrued as a mark of fear or intimidation.

He said that though the military was determined to contribute to the promotion of peace and security, it also remained committed to upholding its statutory role by doing everything to protect the interest, integrity and sovereignty of the nation.

Agwai commended the assistance given the army in the state by the Rivers State Government, following the recent bomb explosion in Port Harcourt and commended the collaboration between the army and other security agencies in the state in the wake of the unfortunate incident.

Meanwhile, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Alexander Ogomudia was yesterday told that the bomb blast that rocked the petroleum tanker drivers park in Warri on Saturday night may have been timed to start a series of explosions in the Niger Delta

General Ogomudia who was at the scene of the incident to carry out a first hand assesment of the blast was shown the deep crater created on the concrete floor of the park by police bombs disposal experts led by Superintendent of Police Mr. Job Olorijolu who led six others for a preliminary investigation of the incident.

Daily Champion gathered that over 200 trucks were at the park when the explosion occurred. The bomb was placed inside a Mercedes Benz 190 Saloon car metallic blue colour which was torn to shreads by the explosion.

The bomb which was suspected to have been timed to create several explosions among the oil tankers which were tightly parked together, failed as all they were yet to load as at the time of the incident as it was weekend, and no loading of products took place. Only eight of the trucks were badly damage.

We gathered that the devastation of the explosion would have affected the David Ejoor Barracks of the 93 Battalion of the Nigerian Army which also serves as Headquarters of the Joint Task Force (JTF) on the Niger Delta, also know as Operation Restore Hope.

When General Ogomudia who was accompanied by the Commander of the JTF, Brig. Gen. Alfred Ilogho, the Commanding Officer of the Warri Naval Base, NNS Delta, Navy Captain Mufutau Ajibade and the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Udom Ekpoudom was surprised that there was no internal security arrangement for safeguarding property at the park by the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).

He was however told by the chairman of NUPENG, Petrol Tankers' Division (PTD), Mr. Matthias Ote that the unit made up of drivers are in no financial position to undertake the huge financial burden of erecting a perimeter fence for the park.

He said that they have been appealing to the Delta State Government, which donated the park to the union, to help built a fence around the park.

Oil Up, Again

Oil rallied above $72 a barrel on Monday, extending a rebound toward record highs as Iran maintained a defiant stance in the face of possible U.N. sanctions and militants detonated a car bomb in Nigeria.

U.S. light, sweet crude zoomed 54 cents higher to $72.42 a barrel by 0640 GMT, adding to a 91-cent gain on Friday that helped limit last week's losses to 4.4 percent. Trading was thin due to holidays in much of Asia and Europe.

IPE Brent crude was up 43 cents at $72.45.

"Most people appear to be very nervous and are looking for something to happen between Iran and the U.N.," said Tetsu Emori, the chief commodities strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures.

Oil has tumbled from a record peak $75.35 a barrel a week ago as dealers took profits and grew more confident about summer gasoline supplies, partly thanks to U.S. President George W. Bush's call to temporarily ease fuel standards.

But geopolitical jitters provided a solid base, analysts said, preventing prices from retracing much of the more than $11 gains they have registered this year.

"I think the oil market is in for a period of consolidation for a few days," said Tobin Gorey of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. "I don't think there's any real interest in getting a sustained short on because it's simply too dangerous."

While oil prices look to be well supported at above $70, the momentum of a rally that had added $15 to prices from March 21 to April 21 had faded, Gorey added.

Iran, which the world's nuclear watchdog said last week had ignored calls to abandon its atomic program, vowed on Sunday to carry on pursuing a nuclear fuel cycle and to strike back if it comes under attack.

U.N. ambassadors from the United States, Britain and France are expected to introduce a Security Council resolution this week to legally oblige Iran to comply with demands to halt enrichment.

Failure to do so could result in limited sanctions, although Russia and China -- the other two veto-wielding council members -- say they do not favor such a move for now.

If the Security Council moves to slowly, the United States is ready to take steps outside the U.N. to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said.

Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian told a news conference in Pakistan that curbs on the country's oil industry were unlikely to be any part of U.N. sanctions, but dealers remain anxious over the world's fourth-biggest exporter.

Ongoing violence in Nigeria, where militants have succeeded in cutting production by a quarter, added support.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which wants more local control over the southern delta's oil wealth, said it had detonated 30 kg (66 lb) of dynamite in a car bombing close to a refinery in the oil capital of Warri.

There were no casualties, an army spokesman said.

The militants said it was a warning to oil industry workers and investors, singling out the Chinese government, which last week clinched a multi-billion dollar deal for access to oil acreage.

Meanwhile speculative short-term fund managers expanded their net long positions a week ago, boosting New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) non-commercial net crude length to a fresh one-year high of more than 74,000 lots in a bet that prices would continue to rally, regulatory data showed on Friday.