The Chief Financial Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Simon Henry has said the company wouldn’t attempt to repair a key pipeline in Nigeria for now after militants attacked it a second time last week, Bloomberg reports.
Simon Henry said the company had to withdraw repair crews last week after a second attack against the 48-inch Forcados export pipeline that links onshore storage tanks with an offshore port.
The Niger Delta Avengers, last week Friday attacked an oil facility belonging to Shell, causing damage to its oil installations in Delta State, which forced Shell to shut down crude oil exports indefinitely.
“We cannot operate or repair if our people are threatened,” Henry said in an interview at Shell’s annual capital markets day. While the company previously said it planned to repair the facility, first attacked in February, this month, the CFO said that it was “not possible” at this time. There is clearly better organization and targeting,” according to the CFO.
Shell’s resignation over the disabled pipeline suggests a new level of insecurity as a wave of violence hits the oil-rich Niger Delta, leaving production at its lowest level in nearly three decades. In the past, energy companies were able to repair pipelines after attacks, barring a few exceptions deep into the region’s swamps and creeks. The attacks are more destructive than in the past, Henry said.The Nigerian Government have however resolved to put an end to the militancy attacks as President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed a team led by the national security adviser “to begin the process of a very intensive dialogue with those caught in the middle of this,” Oil Minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said late on Monday, while Buhari was in Britain seeking medical treatment.
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