Nigeria's Daukoru calls on companies to maintain Niger Delta work

Abuja (Platts)--28Aug2006

Nigerian Oil Minister Edmund Daukoru Monday called on multinational oil
companies to maintain operations in the Niger Delta despite the on going
violence and crude production disruptions there.

"I want to reassure them and any others who are thinking of pulling out
that what we are going through is very temporary," Daukoru told reporters in
Abuja.

An upsurge in attacks on oil companies and kidnappings of foreign workers
recently had seen some companies start pulling out of the Niger Delta region.

Daukoru said the crisis is temporary and that the government was doing
everything it could to put an end to it. "The fact remains that the situation
should be seen for what it truly is, it is temporary," he said. "It is not the
first time that we are going through a wave of urban crime."

Tension has been high in the Niger Delta after Nigerian troops, acting on
the directive of President Olusegun Obasanjo, began hunting down militants
kidnapping oil workers.

Oil firms, including Royal Dutch/Shell and Chevron, have suffered huge
production loses to the violence unleashed since last February by militia
groupsclaiming they were demanding greater share of oil wealth produced from
the region.

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