Avengers ‘blow up’ Chevron’s Escravos export pipeline

Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group, has announced an attack on a pipeline installation owned by Chevron.

The group, which has not carried out any bombing attack for the past few months, announced the attack on its website Tuesday morning.

Avengers also warned that no repairs should be carried out on the attacked installation until the dialogue with the Niger Delta people reaches a conclusion.

“Today at about 3:45am our strike team 06 took down Chevron Escravos export pipeline at Escravos offshore,” the group said in a statement by Mudoch Agbinibo, its spokesperson.

“This action is to further warn all IOCs’ that when we warn that there should be no repairs pending negotiation/dialogue with the people of the Niger Delta, it means there should be no repairs.

“Any attempt to use dialogue to distract us so as to allow the free flow of our oil will halt the dialogue process.”

Tuesday’s attack comes exactly a month and a day after the group blew up the Bonny 48 inches crude oil Export Line in Port Harcourt, saying the action was “a signature to the over-dramatisation of the so-called dialogue and negotiation process on the side of President Muhammadu Buhari and his government”.

The raid drew criticism from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which dissociated itself from the “holier than thou and arrogant attitude of the Pan-Niger Delta Group over the proposed Niger Delta Summit convened by the Federal Government”.

“We condemn, in very strong terms, the unstable, destructive and immature behaviour of the Niger Delta Avengers who resume hostilities at the slightest lame excuse,” MEND said.