LONDON (Dow Jones)--Militants Sunday threatened to attack all oil vessels and facilities in the Niger Delta, saying they have already targeted a Chevron Corp. (CVX) facility as a response to what they said was a full-fledged offensive by the Nigerian army.
In an e-mail Sunday, the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said it "has declared an oil war in response to the unprovoked aerial and marine attacks on a MEND position in Rivers state of Nigeria (Saturday) by the armed forces of Nigeria."
"All international oil and gas loading vessels entering the region are warned to drop anchor in the high sea or divert elsewhere until further notice," it said.
"Failure to comply is taking a foolhardy risk of attack and destruction of the vessel," it added. "We are asking that oil companies evacuate their staff from their field facilities because the brief isn't to capture hostages but to bring these structures to the ground," the statement said.
The Nigerian rebels, which are seeking a better redistribution of crude revenue in the Delta, have attacked oil companies for several years but the warning may signal an escalation of the conflict.
In the e-mail, MEND said that early Sunday it had attacked "the Soku Gas Plant (and the) Chevron Platform at Kula" and "a major crude trunk pipeline at Nembe creek was blown up at several points."
Earlier Sunday, Agence France Presse reported that a unit of the Nigerian army said its men repelled a militant attack on a facility operated by Chevron. Saturday, MEND said the army had launched a "full-scale" offensive on its positions and that 27 hostages had been caught up in the fighting.
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