Although the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone is not directly mentioned, a "top level" meeting of oil and gas company executives heard government pledges to keep it secure at at the meeting, for which no date or place was given.
Shell Oil has been the latest victim of costly pipeline blasts and other vandalism aimed at the multinationals; the company reportedly has restored all but 35,000 barrels a day of the lost 170,000-bpd it suffered in a pipeline explosion two weeks ago. There have been at least three more pipeline explosions since then, with at least five lives lost in the first along with an undetermined amount of oil.
Chevron lost more than $600 million in 2004 to vandalism and theft at its Nigerian operations, it has said.
Yhe latest was today. Unlike the first Shell explosion that targeted pipelines carrying crude oil, though, the subsequent explosions targeted "product" pipelines carrying gasoline and other products and are owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company and its subsidiaries, economist Elias Johnson of the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.
Here is an account of the latest damage:
Pipeline attacked in Nigeria
28/12/2005 19:26 - (SA)
Lagos - Unidentified vandals have set fire to a petroleum products pipeline in Adeje community, near Nigeria's southern oil city of Warri, a senior security official told AFP on Wednesday.
"Unknown vandals on Tuesday set fire to the pipeline of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC). The effect of the fire is very extensive and we are doing everything possible to mitigate it," said the official, who spoke on telephone on condition of anonymity.
PPMC is an affiliate of state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
The vandalisation of the pipeline came barely a week after a pipeline belonging to the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell exploded near the southern oil city of Port Harcourt, forcing the company to declare a "force majeur", which remains on Wednesday.Probably sabotaged
In the latest attack, huge balls of fire took over the Adeje community following the incident on the pipeline, which conveys petroleum products from the Warri refinery to some northern and southwestern parts of the country.
Newspaper reports on Wednesday said that the fire, which raged at several points on the pipeline, was an indication that it might have been sabotaged.
"We are doing everything possible to bring back normalcy," the security official said without giving further details.
A Shell spokesperson said on Wednesday that while pumping had resumed after a pipeline explosion in southern Nigeria, the company was still losing 15,000 barrels a day and could not yet guarantee to honour commitments.
Limited production had already begun on Saturday in the affected part of the Niger Delta, but the company maintained a state of force majeure, a measure allowing oil firms to breach their supply contracts in very serious situations.
At the height of the crisis when the pipeline exploded on December 21, it was
180,000 barrels a day, meaning a cut of seven percent in oil supplies from Africa's main producer.
At least eight people were killed in communities hit by the blast and it took fire crews and engineers three days to put out the blaze after turning off oil feeding it from flow stations, finally putting out the inferno on Friday.
The cause of the blast has not been determined but investigators suspect the pipeline was deliberately blown up with dynamite.
Oil is Nigeria's almost sole source of foreign earnings, but militant youth groups in the south frequently attack installations and kidnap oil employees for ransom because they say local people see no benefits.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo last week following the explosion declared a state of alert in the delta because of the deaths and when a shadowy, hitherto unknown group claimed responsibility for the blast. - Sapa-AFP
Meanwhile, Nigerian police destroyed explosive found at a Halliburton facility in the Niger Delta region, where most of the pipeline explosions have occurred, ThisDay Online reports Wednesday.
Halliburton, you may remember, was heavily fined by the Nigerian government when it illegally transported radioactive materials from the Niger Delta to Germany and back in 2003; the illegal transfer occurred shortly before the forged Niger documents that helped justify the Iraq invasion appeared and were identified as false by the CIA and British, Italian and French authorities.
Police Destroy Explosives at Haliburton
From Okon Bassey in Port Harcourt, 12.27.2005
Explosives recovered at the premises of Halliburton Energy Services in Port Harcourt, Rivers State Capital, have been destroyedby the state police command.
The Police Public Relations Officers (PPRO) of the state Police command, Mrs. Ireju Barasua disclosed this in a statement issued in Port Harcourt.
According to her, the explosives had been examined and found to have deteriorated and expired.
The image maker of the state police command hinted that the said explosives were recovered during a joint inspection exercise by the EOD and Mines Department.
The recovered explosives , she said were destroyed by the anti-bomb squad at its joint range with the Army at Eneka, outskirt of Port Harcourt town on December 21 and 23, 2005.
“The Anti-Bomb Squad of the Nigeria Police Force has taken this measure o ensure that the circulation of explosives are closely monitored and kept out of reach of unauthorized persons”, she declared.
Meanwhile, the state police command has stepped up security surveillance to ensure that the residents in the city do not embark on the use of explosives in celebration of the Christmas and the new year. ...
And here is the story on the regional security plan, with a positive reference to JDZ operations commencing in 2006 hidden down in the very last paragraph:
Govt, oil firms strategise on Gulf of Guinea's security
By Taiwo Hassan
FEDERAL government, oil chiefs fashion out strategy to protect Gulf of Guinea
Worried by the spate of threat to security on African oil due to political instability, war, vandalisation, piracy and terrorism, the Federal Government has held a top level meeting with oil and gas industry chiefs in Abuja, with a mission on how to share responsibility for the protection of the Gulf or Guinea where the continents burgeoning oil suppliers emerged.
Disclosing this revelations in Lagos over the weekend to newsmen, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Funso Kupolokun said that the Gulf of Guinea was secured despite the incessant trouble in the Niger Delta region.
Kupolokun, who dropped this hint while on a courtesy visit to the Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR), said that the government was not folding its hands to the issue and all efforts to ensure that the gulf was safe had been put in place. He added that Gulf of Guinea was driven from the world point and that was the highest point on the earth.
Indeed, to ensure that the different initiatives taken at the just concluded meeting with the president were implemented, the NNPC helmsman observed that the corporation had moved to enhance the navy with various sophisticated equipment needed to protect the gulf and this initiative was driven by the president, in the run-off to the forthcoming general elections in the country.
According to him: "We cannot again run from this, that the Gulf of Guinea is not secured. The Gulf of Guinea is very secured.
"Somebody raised the issue of what happened on the run-off to elections. Perfect, on the run-off to elections in 2003, crude theft was on the order of 100,000 barrels per day. From then to now, it has come down gradually. As at today, we are dealing with 30,000 barrels per day and that is not fair." He continued: "What we want is completed a zero level."
He noted further that in terms of oil theft, which arises from the activities of vandalisation of oil pipelines, the NNPC had tackled this menace and currently, those attacks on oil pipeline had reduced by at least 60 per cent. He added that the nation's production farm-in rose from over 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).
He went further that that significant improvement was achieved as a result of various law agencies in the country; namely, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), the NAVIS, and the police, while also clamouring for the steps taken by the oil industry and the NNPC.
His words: "In terms of oil theft in the country arisen from activity of vandalisation and so on, that again has reduced by at least 60 per cent and when you look at the production farm- in, we moved from over 300,000 bpd to a 400,000 bpd. The bulk of it is common from the west of the Niger Delta-Chevron. So you can see that there were significant improvement being made there. This is as a result of a number of interventions. The EFCC is doing their work, the Navy - they have been wonderful and, of course, the industry have been playing its own part with the NNPC," Kupolokun added.
"NNPC has to buy flat bottom barges for the navy and we bought it and they have deployed these vessels to the gulf for its protection and as a result, we see significant improvements. So we are encouraged by this achievements and we hope to do more," he said.
In addition, the GMD explained that the corporation as part of its plan for next year would pay more attention in the delivery of facilities to the police, EFCC, navy the SSS.
According to him: "We are encouraged to do more and indeed, next year, we are going to deliver more to the police, EFCC and Navy, the SSS. We are going to help them to help us in terms of delivering the services they needed for protection of oil and pipelines."
He admonished also that there were various initiatives going on relating to the Gulf of Guinea. He added that only a months ago, there was a meeting which was held in London and the brain behind this initiative was the Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili, and there was large turnout of foreigners and, of course, a number of factors were taken at the meeting.
"I think Gulf of Guinea is secured and with the initiative on going, we think by 2006 and 2007, the whole story would be a happy one," said GMD.
Besides Nigeria, Angola, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea were already major suppliers of oil to the United States and their reserves were about to surge higher because of the award of oil blocks to interested bidders who won the rights to drill new fields in the deep waters for offshore.
A Washington writer for the Newhouse News Service, David Wod also weighs in on the issue of regional security today:
Scramble for African oil tests U.S.
Military options limited in face of big challenges
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
By David Wood
Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON -- The United States is becoming increasingly dependent on oil from a region beset by official corruption, tottering governments, violent criminal syndicates and religious and ethnic strife: West Africa.
The combination of petroleum and trouble ultimately may put the vast, rich oilfields there in a league with the Persian Gulf. In the latter, American energy needs require massive security commitments including military bases and constant presence of U.S. warships, and U.S. troops have been embroiled in two wars.
Today, 16 percent of America's imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf. Within a decade, according to projections by the CIA and Department of Energy, 25 percent will come from the other gulf, West Africa's Gulf of Guinea.
That would seem to scream out for a robust Navy presence, including warships, coastal patrol boats and maritime aircraft surveillance.
But the Navy, shrunken from a fleet of 568 warships in the late 1980s to 261 today, cannot maintain an armed presence there. All the United States can muster is an occasional ship for a training cruise along the coast; on the last one, the Navy sent an aging submarine maintenance ship, the USS Emory S. Land.
"We can't afford to have a ship there 365 days a year," said Rear Adm. D.C. Curtis of the U.S. 6th Fleet, which oversees naval responsibilities in Europe and Africa from its headquarters in Naples, Italy. "The days of getting an aircraft carrier off the coast are gone."Crooks take toll
That leaves most security in the hands of local forces clearly not up to the job. U.S. officials said thieves each year steal at least $1 billion worth of oil from Nigeria's coastal pipelines; perhaps twice that much is siphoned off by official government corruption.
In one recent case, two Nigerian admirals -- since fired -- arranged for the hijacking of the African Pride, a rust-streaked, Greek-registered coastal tanker laden with 11,000 tons of Nigerian crude worth $4 million. The ship was seized by the Nigerian navy on suspicion that its cargo had been stolen. But the navy escorted the African Pride to sea, where its cargo was pumped to another tanker, which disappeared.
So did the African Pride. Its crew, 15 sailors from Russia and Eastern Europe, were released Dec. 19 -- the same day a firefight broke out between Nigerian police and thieves tapping into an oil pipeline in the Niger River Delta.
Despite its riches, the Gulf of Guinea is "ungoverned, unmonitored and unprotected," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Dan Trott, a Navy desk officer for West Africa, said in a telephone interview from Accra, Ghana.
Current U.S. policy is to gently nudge governments in the region to clean up their own corruption and use their oil profits to build better security.
"The United States, by itself, cannot simply make this region stable," said Theresa Whelan, the Pentagon's top Africa expert. "The best we can do is to try to help these countries help themselves to become more stable.
"In the meantime," Whelan said, "we all just have to deal as best we can with the realities we can't change."
It's not clear this approach will pay off in time.Competition stepped up
Today, oil-hungry China and India are elbowing in alongside U.S. and European oil companies bidding on oil-field leases and exploration rights in waters off Nigeria and Angola and newer fields being developed by Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the tiny twin-island nation of Sao Tome and Principe. International investors are sinking billions of dollars into ultradeep drilling rigs and new facilities for oil and liquefied natural gas.
All this comes atop new warnings that al-Qaida, whose terrorists this summer attacked three U.S. warships docked in the Red Sea, may be planning strikes against maritime targets precisely like those off Africa's coast.
"A sustained, destructive storm churns over the horizon," Navy Capt. James Pelkofski, a joint operations officer at the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, writes in Proceedings, the journal of the U.S. Naval Institute. Al-Qaida "can attack, has attacked and will again attack maritime targets."
The sheer scope of the oil fields and related facilities in the Gulf of Guinea region leaves them vulnerable to attack. There are more than 6,000 miles of oil pipelines in Nigeria alone, most of them crisscrossing the maze of swamps and canals in the Niger River Delta.
Many rigs are isolated far offshore. One of the newest lies 75 miles off the Nigerian coast, a $3.6 billion Royal Dutch Shell facility for oil and natural gas that combines drilling, storage and loading facilities.
A dozen additional facilities for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, are being built across the region including on Equatorial Guinea's main island of Bioko, and in Angola. These are expensive, sprawling complexes for production, storage, pipelines and offshore loading piers.
And they are attractive targets for increasingly savvy criminal gangs that are well financed with billions of dollars of stolen oil money, U.S. intelligence officials said.
"Five years ago they were using only small arms," said a U.S. Navy security adviser, who asked not to be identified. "Now ... let's just say the minimum safe altitude for helicopters has gone way up."Weak defense
Against this threat, most of the Gulf of Guinea's naval forces are moribund. Some years ago, for example, the Pentagon provided Cameroon with 38 Swift boats, river patrol craft of the type the United States used in Vietnam. Today, every single one of the boats is "up on blocks" and unusable for lack of proper maintenance, a Pentagon official said.
"The forces protecting the oil fields are in general terms minimal and in some cases nonexistent ," Trott said.
U.S. policymakers say they are mindful the United States Navy can't simply steam into the Gulf and take over. Nigeria and other states jealously guard their sovereignty. And the Navy doesn't have the resources.
"It's a complex problem," Whelan said. "We cannot change the fact that Africa, at least for the time being, can be a volatile place."
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