QUOTE: One of MEND's Spokesmen

"Our goal remains the destruction of the Nigerian oil industry and all who stand on the pathway to our objective."

Joseph Gbomo. Self-declared MEND spokesman with a good track record. Statement following the killing of 14 Nigerian soldiers and the abduction of 25 Nigerian Shell subcontractors. Marketwatch. Success so far: 872,000 barrels a day of production.

Comments

[Duncan Kinder]

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-10-06T124333Z_01_BAN645962_RTRIDST_0_OZABS-NIGERIA-DELTA-20061006.XML

quote:

ABUJA (Reuters) - Gun battles between Nigerian militants and troops in the Niger Delta have forced Royal Dutch Shell to shut a 9,000 barrel-a-day oil pumping station, company sources said on Friday.

The closure of the Ekulama I flow station was the first impact on oil output from a surge in violence in the eastern part of the Niger Delta this week, and adds to almost 500,000 barrels a day shut since February in the west.

"The recent attacks in the east around Cawthorne Channel have led to a further shut-in of 9,000 barrels per day," a Shell source said, asking not to be named.

Fighters with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) stormed an oil workers' houseboat at Ekulama on Wednesday in one of two confrontations with the military in which the militants said 17 soldiers were killed.

Fighting continued in the area on Thursday and industry sources said there were 35 militant speed boats full of fighters cruising around the creeks.

These sources said the militants had been shooting rifles at pipelines, but a MEND spokesman said the pipelines were damaged by fire from the military's helicopter gunship.

"The helicopter gunship punctured most of the pipelines in several areas causing crude oil and possibly refined products to seep out. That chopper fires .50 calibre rounds," the spokesman said in an email to Reuters.

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[Duncan Kinder]

The Nigerian oil rebels are operating in the marshy wetlands of Nigeria. Therefore, a precedent for their activities would be the "owlers," the smugglers of Romney Marsh, which is along the Kent / Sussex border area of southeast England.

http://www.smuggling.co.uk/gazetteer_se_15.html

quote:

ROMNEY MARSH

It would be fair to say that Romney Marsh was the birthplace of smuggling in southern England. The fertile land reclaimed from the sea made fine grazing for hundreds of thousands of sheep, and the export of the wool from their backs was for centuries both highly taxed and badly policed — almost an open invitation to smuggle.

Illegal wool exports from the marsh probably started the very first day that restrictions were imposed: in 1275 the government introduced a tax of £3 a bag on wool leaving England. This was doubled in 1298, and successive administrations tinkered with the laws and duties according to their need for funds. Wool smuggling from Romney Marsh — and elsewhere in Britain — fluctuated in response to the laws, and to market forces; high demand at home meant there was less incentive to smuggle. In the 15th century, though, the reverse happened, and as wool prices fell, the producers found it harder to make a living from the home market. The expansion of smuggling was inevitable.
Engraving of Rye
The silting of the River Rother prevented big ships from reaching Rye, but small smuggling vessels could unload their contraband virtually on the doorstep of the inns that sold it.
Click picture to enlarge

It was in the 17th century that the problem assumed epidemic proportions, and attention was focused firmly on Romney Marsh as the centre for the trade. In 1660 wool exports were forbidden, and two years later the death penalty was introduced for smuggling wool. The legislators of the day probably saw this as a major deterrent, but if anything, it simply made the owlers of Romney Marsh more desperate still. If you're to hang for smuggling wool, why hesitate to shoot your pursuer?

Public opinion on the Marsh generally sided with the owlers (as they were known locally)

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See also

http://www.smuggling.co.uk/gazetteer_se.html

quote:

A glance at an atlas is all that's needed to see the advantages that the south-east of England offered to the enterprising smuggler. To the east, within sight on a clear day, lies northern France, the source of much of the contraband; and to the north and west lie rich farm land, and the wealthy, wicked capital city — ready markets for the fine laces, wines and brandy that the smuggler obligingly shipped across the channel.

However, smuggling began not as the import activity that we know today, but as exports. And in a sense, the south-east might be regarded as the cradle of big-business smuggling for the whole of the British Isles.

Drive across misty Romney Marsh, and you'll need little further explanation. Contented sheep still chomp the salty grass of the marshes, just as they have done for centuries, and it was the wool from their backs that was carried out of the country by the ton to the waiting weavers on the continent. Even in the thirteenth century massive taxation on wool exports made the rewards from illegal wool export well worth the risk of capture.

The wool smugglers of Kent generally, and Romney Marsh in particular, were called 'Owlers'. There has long been debate about how they acquired this name, and people have advanced various romantic theories, mostly centred around owls — the smugglers hunted at night, so they took the name of the nocturnal bird; or they signalled to each other by hooting like owls. The most prosaic explanation, and probably the most likely, is that 'owler' is just a corruption of 'wooler', which was a common name for anyone processing wool. [8]

The wool smugglers of south east England, and their successors, the import smugglers, developed a reputation for savagery that is often used as a yardstick by other counties claiming a 'gentle' nature for their own smugglers. Certainly the horrific killings of Galley and Chater and the thuggish activities of the Hawkhurst gang lend weight to this opinion, but it's possible to cite evidence of matching barbarity from other counties. For example, read how Jeremiah Gardener lost his nose near Snape in 1727.

One possible explanation for the fearsome reputation of the Kent and Sussex smugglers is that their activities were more widely advertised than those of smugglers from other counties. The book that chronicles the torture and savage murders of Galley and Chater was first published in 1749 shortly after the trial, and reprinted four times in that year alone [9]. It has appeared in full and abridged forms many times since. Furthermore, it contained graphic engravings of the men's last moments, which would have impressed even the illiterate. Perhaps if some Cornish smugglers had received an equally bad press, that part of Britain would not now pretend that smuggling there was a harmless fraud that hurt only the King's purse?

However, assuming that the smugglers of the south east really were more violent than their fellows, are there any genuine reasons why this should be the case? Perhaps the long history of smuggling in the area goes some way towards explaining its savage nature. In the heyday of smuggling — the late 18th and early 19th centuries — the trade was carried out by large and highly-organized gangs that landed their goods mostly by brute strength. Men with cudgels and firearms lined the beach in such numbers that preventive forces could only stand and watch.

:end_of_quote

[Duncan Kinder]

Status as of Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006:

http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=60084

quote:

A statement by the Movement for the Defence of Niger Delta (MEND) asked all oil companies to pull out of the region or risk major attacks on them, which may include taking hostages.

The group stated that one of its demands was for the release of Alhaji Asari Dokubo from detention, adding that delay in conceding to its request would elicit increase in attacks, which they would from time to time, suspend to adopt new strategies.
“As it seems, we are being forced to act ahead of our planned major strike on the Nigerian oil industry. Operators of facilities in Rivers state are advised to evacuate their staff from such locations with immediate effect. For long, we have advertised that we will no longer take hostages in attacks on oil installations. We will not go back on that pledge.
“In addition, we will commence with a number of strategic attacks on targets of relevance. This will commence with effect from today and will increase in severity depending on the response from the Nigerian military,” they threatened.

:end_of_quote
,

[Duncan Kinder]

According to BusinessWeek, oil companies have, to some extent, developed a countermeasure to Nigerian guerrillas disruption of their oil production though new, completely offshore technologies.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_42/b4005085.htm

quote:

Far out at sea, the situation is much safer. Since late last year, Shell has been extracting oil from its massive Bonga field, a $3.6 billion project located in 3,200 feet of water. The field now yields more than 200,000 barrels a day, thanks to a high-tech facility called a floating production, storage, and offloading vessel, or FPSO. It looks like an oil tanker and can hold up to 2 million barrels in its belly, but its primary purpose is to load up tankers out at sea, rather than piping the crude to an onshore terminal. The oil streaming in from Bonga and other deepwater sites like it helps explain why oil prices have settled down to under $60 from a July high of $78.

For the oil companies, benefits abound. FPSOs spare them billions of dollars in infrastructure costs, years of construction time, and in the case of Nigeria, the significant costs and setbacks associated with political instability. "The FPSO gives you a great deal of flexibility," says John Stubbs, the Shell executive who got the Bonga project up and running.

:end_of_quote