LAGOS (AFP) — Armed militants in southern Nigeria on Friday attacked a Nigerian navy boat guarding a flow station belonging to the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell, a military commander said.
The attack, in which no-one was hurt, took place around Nembe creek flow station in the southwestern Bayelsa state in the restive Niger Delta.
"They attacked somewhere around Nembe Creek, at around 2:30 am (0130 GMT), but there were no casualties," Brigadier-General Wuyep Rimtip, in charge of a special military taskforce in the oil-hub, told AFP.
The boat "was damaged but there was no... damage to any of the (oil) facilities," he added in a telephone interview.
The attack came after the main armed group in southern Nigeria, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) -- which claims to be fighting for a greater share of Nigeria's oil wealth for the local people -- on Thursday said it had fired on an army helicopter, in the same Bayelsa state.
But the military, which earlier in the day had repelled a militant attack on a key export terminal operated by the US oil giant Chevron, rejected the claims.
Gen Rimtip said militants were retaliating for last weekend's interception of a vessel laden with 12,500 metric tonnes of crude oil which was believed to have been stolen.
"Secondly, they are in search of arms and ammunition, so at the slightest opportunity, they always attempt to attack to see if they can take our weapons. But they have always been unsuccessful," he said.
MEND rose to prominence in January 2006 and has since claimed responsibility for a string of violent attacks on Nigeria's oil industry and kidnappings of both local and foreign oil workers in the region.
The unrest has reduced Nigeria's oil output by more than one quarter. Production currently stands at between 1.8 and two million barrels a day against 2.6 million barrels two years ago.
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