LAGOS - NIGERIAN militants said on Monday they destroyed a strategic manifold owned by US oil group Chevron hours after they claimed an attack on Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell.

Mend urged oil firms in Niger Delta to leave 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. ... more

'The strategic Okan manifold which controls about 80 percent of Chevron Nigeria Limited off shore crude oil to its BOP Crude Loading Platform was blown up at about 2045 hours on Sunday, June 5, 2009,' the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said in a statement.

Chevron was not immediately available to confirm the attack, coming after a similar attack on Shell's facility in the volatile Niger delta.

Mend said it carried out the attack to teach Nigeria and its special military task force (JTF) in the region a lesson.

'As long as the Nigerian government and military JTF has chosen to carry out kidnappings and arson against innocent communities and individuals, Moses will fight for them,' it said.

The group demanded the release of a traditional ruler it accused the military of abducting.

'We are demanding that the abducted monarch who is still being held illegally by the JTF be released immediately or charged to a competent court of law,' it added.

Monday's attack came hours after Mend destroyed 'the Shell well head at Cawthorn Channel 1' which connects with the Bonny loading terminal in Rivers state.

Mend on Saturday vowed to thwart a 10-billion-dollar 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 pipeline conveying gas destined for the European market from the Niger Delta in Nigeria, via Niger and Algeria. -- AFP