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May 11, 2007
Oil prices - and by extension gasoline prices - have been kept on the high side in recent months partly because of the continued violence directed against oil pipelines, installations and workers in the southern Delta region of Nigeria. The West African nation's oil output has been cut by as much as 25 percent.
Nigeria is the world's 6th biggest producer of crude oil and a major supplier to U.S. refineries; It's oil has a low sulfur content and is only a transAtlantic crossing away.
But radical groups are seeking a greater share of oil wealth for the nation - certainly for the inhabitants of the southern, oil-rich Delta region - and reparations for the pollution in the region.
The main group, the shadowy Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), was formed early last year and is motivated and well organized. It operates as a guerilla / pirate group, running gunboats in and out of the dense mangrove swamps that line hundreds of miles of shoreline. Favored tactics have been the blowing up of pipelines and the kidnapping of oil company personnel for political leverage and/or ransom.
The damage to oil installations and harrassment of personnel could force some oil companies to pull out, which would seriously affect world oil supplies and prices.
Certainly, there is no light at the end of this tunnel in the short term: Earlier this week, MEND said it had initiated a month-long campaign to unleash mayhem on Western oil facilities.
Posted by 
at 11:32 AM to Oil
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