NIGERIA: Nigerian troops mounted gunpoint security checks yesterday as they moved to quell ethnic warfare that has left scores dead and halted nearly 40 per cent of the country's oil output.
Fighting in oilfields that account for most of Nigeria's crude production has helped push up world oil prices, disrupted power supplies and threatened to exacerbate fuel shortages ahead of critical elections in Africa's most populous nation.
Troops in battledress set up roadblocks in the western Niger Delta's main city of Warri yesterday, forcing people to hold their hands in the air for security checks. Nigeria's army chief has moved to Warri to take personal control of operations.
Speedboats, used by tribal warriors to skim through the tangle of swamps and creeks, were banned from sensitive areas.
Ethnic Ijaws, at the centre of a growing insurrection after clashing with Itsekiri rivals and soldiers, warned the army against any attempt to enter their villages by force.
"We are on the lookout because the government has been despatching a lot of personnel around here," said Ijaw leader George Timini by satellite phone.
"If (they) decide to attack our communities, we are going to attack them on an equal basis and vandalise pipelines, tank farms and flow stations." Oil multinationals have evacuated workers and shut down practically all their operations in the western Niger Delta, with total losses amounting to some 37 per cent of production in a west African country that exports little but oil.
Nigeria's biggest producer Royal Dutch/Shell on Monday joined US oil major Chevro/Texaco and France's TotalFina/Elf in shutting operations in the swamplands.
The firms said yesterday they had little idea when they might resume, though Shell boosted production from the eastern Niger Delta to make up for some of the loss to Nigerian output that normally tops two million barrels per day. US oil refiners, reliant on Nigeria's light crudes for their high gasoline yield, are scrambling to find alternative supplies with demand rising for the summer season.