•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

A Nigerian armed rebel group on Friday claimed to have blown up an oil facility in the restive oil-producing Niger Delta region and threatened to step up attacks in coming days.

"At about 12:08 am (2308 GMT), March 19, 2010, units of the Joint Revolutionary Council of Niger Delta attacked and exploded the Abbiama Manifold in Buguma," the group said in an email statement to the media.

"We are going to extend the intensity of attacks in the coming days, believing that the oil companies and diplomatic missions in Nigeria have evacuated their foreign national(s)," said the JRC, a previously unknown militant group.

Buguma is in Rivers State, whose capital Port Harcourt is Nigeria's oil hub and the base for many expatriates working in the Niger Delta.

The military, which is deployed to police the volatile region, took note of the attack and said the Buguma installation was operated by the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell.

"It is true that there was a reported sabotage on the Abbiama Manifold in Buguma," Colonel Timothy Antigha, spokesman for the Joint Task Force.

"We have reported the sabotage to the concerned authorities and in this case we are talking of Shell, but it was not carried out by the so-called JRC. It was the handiwork of oil bunkerers (thieves)," Antigha told AFP.

The JRC said claims to be distinct from the region's most prominent armed group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which early this year called off a three-month-old truce with the government.

A key demand of the militants is that local communities benefit from the region's oil wealth.

At the peak of the unrest in the restive region, Nigeria's daily oil output dropped by a third to 1.5 million barrels from 2.6 million barrels.

Oil is Nigeria's economic mainstay, raking in some 95 percent of export earnings and accounting for about 85 percent of budget needs for the OPEC member country.

AFP