Lagos (Platts)--28Oct2009/826 am EDT/1226 GMT

State-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation said Wednesday it agreed with its foreign oil partners to back Nigeria in rehabilitating and training militants who recently accepted the government's amnesty.

Oil companies and NNPC representatives met in Abuja on Tuesday and set up a committee to monitor the post-amnesty program, headed by presidential adviser on petroleum Emmanuel Egbogah, NNPC said in a statement.

"I don't need to overemphasize what we have lost as a government and as operators in the Niger Delta during the dark days of militancy," Nigeria's oil minister, Rilwanu Lukman, said. "But we must look ahead and take concrete steps to avoid a recurrence of the ugly past," Lukman was quoted saying at meeting.

The amnesty, which expired on October 4, has been more successful than the Nigerian government anticipated, with up to 15,000 militants surrendering their arms, and has allowed Nigeria to boost its production.

The managing director of Shell Petroleum Development Company, Mutiu Sumonu, said there was an urgent need for a post-amnesty consolidation strategy.

"Once proper reorientation is achieved we can now move to the next stage, which is integration. But in all these we must work as a group by galvanizing our efforts to achieve greater impact," Sumonu said.

MEND, the main armed group in the oil-rich Delta region, last week said it had been encouraged by the government's "readiness to engage" in serious talks and announced a new, indefinite ceasefire.

The militant group, which says it is fighting for a fairer share of the region's wealth, had been attacking oil installations and oil workers since January 2006.

Although MEND has declared an indefinite ceasefire, resentment is likely to remain over the division of oil revenues. Militants have demanded up to a 20% share of the country's revenues, but at the beginning of October the Niger Delta region was getting only 13%.

--Staff, newsdesk@platts.com