Niger Delta Militants Attack Shell, Chevron Plants

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

Source: Bloomberg

By Dulue Mbachu

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Nigerian militants said they killed at least 22 soldiers and destroyed parts of Royal Dutch Shell Plc's Soku gas plant and Chevron Corp.'s Kula oil pumping station in overnight attacks.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said in an e-mailed statement that it also blew up a crude pipeline at Nembe at several points. Chevron confirmed the attack on its Kula pumping station in Robertkiri, which lies in the Kula district, southwest of the main oil hub of Port Harcourt.

``There was an attack on Robertkiri flow station, though it was already shut due to pipeline leakage,'' a Chevron spokesman said in a telephone interview from Lagos, declining to be identified. Shell spokeswoman Caroline Wittgen said the company is investigating reports of attacks on its facilities.

The Nigerian military ``heroically and successfully repelled the attack,'' spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said in a telephone interview, without providing details.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aNKbON76aOCo&refer=energy

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I find it more than interesting that MEND, apparently Super-Guerillas who can do it all barefoot and with a rusty AK-74, after having been quiet for months, seem to have this incredible ability to continue to coordinate their attacks with drops in the market price of Crude Oil and Natural Gas. Read up on MEND: they are about as irregular a force as they can be, without suffering with constipation.

If they now have the weapons alluded to in the story, capable of artillery-like attacks, where are they getting them? Who is supplying them? Who is bankrolling them? After all, insurgencies cost money.

And why do their attacks seem to be so well-coordinated with new lows in the oil markets?

These are some of the questions that run around in my head.

[TomInTib]

1. Good question

I can only think of about a half-dozen parties who might get behind MEND. But none of it makes perfect sense.

If I had to guess, I would guess Russia.

[bluesmail]

2. They have not forgotten Ken Saro Wiwa's murder by Royal

Dutch Shell. I refused from that day to buy any fuel from Shell. This was done on the eve of The Mother Of All Mondays, to boot. }(

[Javaman]

3. They haven't been quiet for months...

They have been blowing up smaller installation for the last two months. Check the peak oil bulletin on mondays, I post it in the environmental board every week. It gives an update as to what's going on around the world concerning oil.

[Peace Patriot]

4. I read the Associated Pukes version of this story in my local Corpo/Puke rag

this morning, and it was even more uninformative and incoherent than this one. I can't wait for Rotters to chime in.

I began re-naming these so-called 'news' organizations, with funny, appropriate names, due to their unfrackingbelievably rotten, lying disinformation about South America's many new leftist leaders (most of the continent). It's gotten to the point where I apply my rule of thumb for Bushite pronouncements to Associated Pukes and Rotters 'news' article: whatever they assert, the opposite is more than likely true. It's a pretty reliable rule--a good start anyway, in trying to figure out what's really going on.

Another good rule is to assume that 99.9% of the information you need to understand the event has been deliberately black-holed. And a third rule is also useful: if any percentage of U.S. oil imports comes from the third world country in question, be doubly cautious about the newswriters outright lying (the opposite is true), and their deliberate uninformative-ness (lack of context, history, reality).

Applying these rules to the Bloomberg piece, we can see the key problem right away, in their final sentence: "(Nigeria) is the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports." All red flags go up at this point. Black-holed information: If Nigeria is flush with oil, and oil makes people rich, why are there "armed militants" blowing up Shell's and Chevron's pipelines? This black-holed information raises several questions, including: ARE "armed militants" blowing up pipelines? And, if so, who are they and what is their motive? You raise this question, above. It's a good one. Is the story even true, on its face? If these militants are not Corpo hires--if they are locals who hate Shell/Chevron, and are acting to punish these Corpos, disrupt their business and drive them out of Nigeria, what are the reasons for their anger, and are they justified?

I'm reminded of the $16 BILLION environmental damages judgment that is about to be issued against Chevron in Ecuador, for oil and other toxic spill damage that some experts describe as "worse than the Exxon-Valdez." (I've seen the numbers--they are right--it's FAR worse.) To prevent uppity locals from requiring accountability from Big Corpos for what they do in third world countries, Big Corpos destroy democracies (good, representative governments that act in the interest of their people) and install fascist dictatorships or extremely corrupt, unresponsive but democratic-seeming governments, both of which create justifiable anger in local populations. Is this what is happening in Nigeria? Big Corpos are ripping off their major resource, benefiting no one (or only a rich elite), and have installed bad leaders who don't represent the interests of their people and their country?

Well, anyway, you would never know, from this Bloomberg article, what's really going on. So you have to guess, read between the lines, peer into the black holes of missing information, and apply tried and true rules of thumb (like, upfront the whole story is bolox). ARE Shell/Chevron pipelines really being blown up--or are they just LEAKING (and, ten years from now, we will begin hearing about Exxon-Valdez III, in Nigeria)? If the story is true, and angry local militants are doing this, and poverty is the issue, why are Nigerians poor, with all that black gold flowing? Is the Nigerian military really "heroic and successful," or are they just Shell/Chevron clothed, armed and fed lackeys, killing their brethren for global corporate predators--or are they just desperate poor people themselves, in the military because there are no other jobs, and they are compelled to tell lies about how "heroic and successful" they are, to keep food on the table? Who really killed whom? How many? Why? Who knows?

Finally, if you really want to figure things out, you have to go to alternative sources--which I'm going to do now. Because articles like this are utterly useless pieces of shit journalism serving Corpo interests.

I guess I need to re-name Bloomberg. Boomturd? Bloombungle? Bloomlies? Bloomborg? I like Bloomborg!