LAGOS - NIGERIAN rebels announced on Sunday they had launched a fresh attack on an oil facility run by the Anglo-Dutch group Shell in the restive Niger Delta.
MEND, which came to prominence in December 2005, has been responsible for series of attacks on major oil companies, including Shell, Chevron and Italian group Agip.
On Monday, the group claimed it attacked Shell Forcados offshore platform and killed at least 20 soldiers, a claim denied by the security forces.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in a statement it had attacked 'the Shell well head at Cawthorn Channel 1' which connects with the Bonny loading terminal in Rivers state at 3am on Sunday.
Shell said it was investigating the claim.
'We have received a report of an incident a Cawthorn Channel. We are investigating while an emergency response is in progress,' Shell's spokesman Tony Okonedo told AFP.
The group on Saturday vowed to thwart a US$10 billion (S$14.55 billion) trans-Saharan gas pipeline project linking vast reserves in Nigeria to Europe.
On Friday, three African countries - Algeria, Niger and Nigeria - signed a deal in Abuja to build the more than 4,000-kilometre (2,485-mile) pipeline conveying gas destined for the European market from the Niger Delta in Nigeria, via Niger and Algeria.
No date was announced for the start of construction, but the first delivery of gas is scheduled in 2015.
MEND urged oil firms still operating in the restive Niger Delta to leave immediately, threatening to carry out new attacks.
Sunday's attack was the latest to rock on rich-Nigeria in recent months. -- AFP
