Nigerian militants strike oil targets again

LAGOS, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Nigerian militants said they blew up a military houseboat and an oil pipeline on Monday, extending a campaign of sabotage in the world's eighth largest exporter which has already cut supplies by a fifth.

The militants, who are holding nine foreign hostages, vowed to prevent Royal Dutch Shell from using the damaged Forcados tanker loading platform, which accounts for 15 percent of Nigerian output, and threatened an even more devastating series of attacks on the whole region.

"Patrol units ... carried out attacks on one houseboat belonging to the Nigerian army and the Shell Ughelli Odidi-Escravos manifold. Both were destroyed with explosives," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said by email.

The group added that soldiers on the houseboat fled before it was destroyed.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the information independently, but the militants have provided accurate details of their attacks in the past.

Shell said it had suspended 455,000 barrels a day of oil production, 19 percent of the OPEC member's output, after a string of pre-dawn raids on installations in Delta state, on the western side of the vast wetlands region, on Saturday.

"We are going to continue with the destruction of oil facilities in Delta state while concluding arrangements for our wider attacks on the entire region," the militants said.

Shell closed 340,000 barrels a day of production from fields feeding its Forcados tanker platform, which was bombed on Saturday, and halted another 115,000 barrels daily by closing the offshore EA field as a precaution.

The Forcados closure includes 106,000 barrels a day from a pipeline which has been shut since an earlier attack in January.

OIL PRICES JUMP

North Sea Brent crude oil futures rose $1.51 to $61.40 a barrel on Monday in response to the attacks.

Shell said it was waiting for the security situation to improve before trying to repair the Forcados platform, and militants vowed to attack any vessel that tried to use it.

Shell said it was evacuating staff from remote locations in the eastern delta as a precaution, although its output of 390,000 barrels a day in that region was not affected.

The militants snatched the hostages -- three Americans, a Briton, two Egyptians, two Thais and one Filipino -- from a barge operated by U.S. services company Willbros .

The military-style raids were a mirror image of attacks in December and January which hit 10 percent of Nigerian exports at one point and saw four oil workers kidnapped for 19 days.

The government says the militant movement is a cover for thieves siphoning crude oil on a commercial scale from pipelines across the delta in southern Nigeria.

The militants accused Nigerian military and security commanders in the area of being responsible for the theft.

"Oil is not like diamonds and requires ships to come in unhindered. This is facilitated by the heads of these security organisations who are paid a standard fee for every vessel loaded," they said.

The militants have demanded the release of two ethnic Ijaw leaders -- an impeached state governor on trial for money laundering and a militia leader charged with treason -- and more local control over the Niger Delta's vast oil resources.

Analysts at Eurasia Group said the markets should expect a prolonged period of disruptions in Nigeria this year, as tension between rival factions of the ruling party mounts towards elections in early 2007.

"The security situation in the Niger Delta will remain largely unstable for the rest of the year, with intermittent attacks, regularly disrupting about 10 to 20 percent of Nigerian crude production," they said in a report on Sunday.