A Non-Governmental Organisation, Community Watch of Nigeria (CWN), has condemned the May 4 militants’ attack on Chevron’s offshore platform in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State.
The Coordinator of the organisation, Chief Samingo Etukakpan, who made the condemnation in an interview with newsmen, yesterday, in Eket, Akwa Ibom State, said the renewed attacks on oil installations portend great danger to the region.
Our source recalls that the militants, identified as members of Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), have already claimed responsibility for the attack.
The facility is jointly owned by the NNPC and Chevron and is operated by the American oil firm.
Etukakpan said that the re-emergence of militancy in the Niger Delta was a sad development and a threat to the unity and progress of the nation.
He said that the Amnesty Programme of the Federal Government was an elaborate youth’s enhancement package aimed at ending militancy in the region.
He said that the organisation planned to convoke a peace conference for the youths of the Niger Delta to seek more ways of supporting the current administration.
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has given a fresh order to the military to crack down on a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, which has been attacking oil installations.
Our source gathered that the President gave the directive on Friday, following the group’s attack on Chevron’s platform in Warri, Delta State, on Thursday and its blowing up of pipelines linking Warri and Kaduna refineries on Friday.
Following the attack on the Okan offshore production platform on Wednesday by the militants, Chevron said it had lost about 105,000 barrels of oil production in three days.
The oil major said the incident had affected about 35,000 barrels per day of its own net crude production, or about 15 per cent of its output in the country.
“Approximately 35,000 bpd of Chevron’s net crude oil production in Nigeria are impacted,” AFP quoted a Chevron’s spokeswoman, Isabel Ordonez, as saying in a statement.
The General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Mr. Deji Haastrup, confirmed the figure.
He said, “This is a very difficult time for the country because it needs the revenue it can get from oil production. Incidents such as this have the potential to impact that. We do hope that it does not seriously affect the country.”
Workers on the pipelines told one of our correspondents that before the attack, they had pumped 28,000 barrels from the Escravos terminal on Thursday.
“Both Warri and Kaduna refineries also got a delivery rate of 903,000 barrels just before the attacks,” the workers who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
A presidential aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “The President gave special instruction to the military, especially to the Chief of Naval Staff, that this ugly development of vandals in the Niger Delta should end immediately.”
It was learnt that the President also ordered the Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas, to ensure that all waterways and platforms were protected against further attacks by the militants.
Buhari had in April threatened that his administration would descend heavily on oil and gas pipeline vandals as well as other saboteurs the same way the nation’s Armed Forces were dealing with members of the Boko Haram sect.
The President, who spoke in Beijing during a meeting he had with members of the Nigerian community in China, warned vandals and saboteurs blowing up oil and gas installations in Nigeria to desist immediately or face the same drastic action being taken against Boko Haram  by the Armed Forces.