Nigeria oil 'total war' warning

[Bandidoz]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4723076.stm

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has given oil companies and their employees until midnight on Friday night to leave the region

[Totally_Baffled]

Isn't Nigeria a key supplier to the US?

Shouldn't the US be providing military support by now?

After all, they're only interested in the oil right?

(Nigeria supplies as much, if not more, light sweet to the US than the Middle east does!)

[clv101]

This is from 2003:

http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html

Not sure all the directions since then, maybe the UK is a smaller amount, Russia is larger, Iraq is smaller?

[RevdTess]

2005 US crude import numbers:-

Canada 17% 1,642k b/d
Mexico 16% 1,550k b/d
Saudi Arabia 14% 1,438k b/d
Venezuela 12% 1,231k b/d
Nigeria 10% 1,060k b/d
Iraq 6% 520k b/d
Angola 4% 450k b/d
Ecuador 3% 276k b/d
Algeria 2% 228k b/d
Kuwait 2% 215k b/d
Others 15% 1500k b/d

Total 10.1 million barrels per day

[Totally_Baffled]

Alright alright, I got me figure wrong (SA provides 14% which is greater than Nigeria at 10%)

All the same, it is a major issue for the global oil market, but even more acute Nigeria is a direct supplier to the US of light sweet crude.

You would of thought any threat to this would of been met with some sort of military back up from the US (given our assumption that US foreign policy consists of one thing and that is securing oil!)

[clv101]

Is that Iraq 6% figure just what the US army, navy and air force are directly using in Iraq or does any of it get back home?

[RevdTess]

Is that Iraq 6% figure just what the US army, navy and air force are directly using in Iraq or does any of it get back home?

Heh. Dont know. I didn't calculate the numbers myself.

[RevdTess]

Alright alright, I got me figure wrong (SA provides 14% which is greater than Nigeria at 10%)

All the same, it is a major issue for the global oil market, but even more acute Nigeria is a direct supplier to the US of light sweet crude.

You would of thought any threat to this would of been met with some sort of military back up from the US (given our assumption that US foreign policy consists of one thing and that is securing oil!)

You're right about Nigeria. It's very important and getting ever more so. I brought a big fat report about Nigerian oil home with me to read this weekend. Their plans for production expansion in the next five years are enormous.

[marknorthfield]

Problem re: military intervention by US - Nigeria has no WMDs or international terrorists. Still, internal 'terrorism' might prove a good enough reason...

[Totally_Baffled]

Problem re: military intervention by US - Nigeria has no WMDs or international terrorists. Still, internal 'terrorism' might prove a good enough reason...

Of course you are right, insufficient propaganda prevents the US from doing anything.

I wonder at what point the US gives up on trying to "justify" resource wars with any propaganda at all?

It takes time to propagate all the false terrorism stories and them associate them to whatever country they want , at what point do they give up trying as more and more of their oil supply comes under "threat"?

[fishertrop]

Shell Oil Facility Blown Up
This Day (Lagos)

February 17, 2006
Posted to the web February 17, 2006
Mike Oduniyi
Lagos

http://allafrica.com/stories/200602170004.html

Barely 24 hours after the Joint Military Task Force in the Niger Delta, Operation Restore Hope, bombarded illegal oil bunkerers' facilities in Okorenkoko, an Ijaw Community in Warri, a Shell Petroleum Develop-ment Company (SPDC) facility in Rivers State went up in flames yesterday, leading to the closure of a flow station with a daily production capacity of 37, 800 barrels.

[EmptyBee]

Reuters are reporting that 380,000 barrels a day are being taken offline as a consequence:

LAGOS, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> suspended exports from the 380,000 barrel-a-day Forcados terminal on Saturday after militants bombed the tanker loading platform, a senior oil industry source said.

The company is still trying to ascertain the damage to the platform, which is located three miles (five km) offshore, but has already begun shutting oilfields in the area which feed the terminal, the source added.

"Of course no ships can go near there now. This is going to be a major deferment," the senior industry source said.

"If we can't export, we can't produce," he added.

Nigeria is the world's eighth largest oil exporter and normally pumps about 2.4 million barrels per day.
Reuters

I suspect this means oil will stay below $60 for about 3 nano-seconds on monday

[MacG]

Problem re: military intervention by US - Nigeria has no WMDs or international terrorists. Still, internal 'terrorism' might prove a good enough reason...

Does it really matter? The invasion of Iraq must be categorized as a miserable failure with respect to oil extraction, and there is little reason to expect an invasion of for example Nigeria to be more succesful. WMD-excuses or not, the place would propably turn into a worse quagmire than Iraq. They probably got spiders, snakes and malaria there as well.

[StephenCurran (Stef)]

Hi All

More oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria

The group, including three Americans, two Thais, two Egyptians, a Briton and a Filipino, were on a pipelaying barge.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4726680.stm

Stef

[EmptyBee]

They probably got spiders, snakes and malaria there as well.

Don't forget bird flu!