Oil Pipeline Explodes in Nigeria, Kills at Least 100
By: Administrative Account | Source: Bloomberg
May 12, 2006 11:01PM EST

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- An oil pipeline near Lagos, Nigeria's most populous city, exploded and burst into flames, killing at least 100 people, Red Cross and Nigerian officials said. A pipeline carrying refined products caught fire at Inagbe Creek outside of Lagos, said Nigerian Red Cross Secretary General Abiodun Orebiyi, who visited the site. The cause of the blast isn't known, he said. The pipeline was already vandalized and was being tapped by villagers, he said. ``Very many people were there trying to scoop the fuel for money,'' Orebiyi said in an interview from Lagos. ``It has happened over and over again. Nobody could say what actually happened. Maybe it was caused by the clashing of metals by people trying to take fuel from the vandalized pipe.'' Levi Ajuonuma, a spokesman for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., which operates the pipeline, also confirmed the explosion, saying it was a result of ``pipeline vandalism.'' The blast, which won't affect the nation's crude exports, will likely tighten supplies at the gas pumps in Lagos, a city of more than 10 million, said Antony Goldman, an analyst at London-based Clearwater Research. ``It appears not to be militants, but is a reminder that there is a much more widespread, if low-key issue, of community involvement in tapping,'' Goldman said. He said it was a ``human tragedy that will have knock-on effects for supply to a big city.'' MEND Jomo Gbomo, a spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger delta, denied involvement in the explosion. MEND's attacks on pipelines and an export terminal run by the Nigerian venture of Royal Dutch Shell Plc earlier this year halted output of as much as 631,000 barrels of oil a day, more than a quarter of Nigeria's production. ``All this works to our advantage in some ways,'' Gbomo said in an e-mail to Bloomberg. ``We wouldn't want to kill so many innocents in any attack,'' he said. ``I'm not a part of it.'' The explosion comes a day after three foreign oil workers were kidnapped in the southeastern city of Port Harcourt. The workers, one of whom was an Italian, were released today, the Italian Foreign Ministry said. On May 10, an American employee of oil-services company Baker Hughes Inc. was killed in a drive- by shooting. ``It's a hell of a week,'' Goldman said. ``It shows the full range of challenges that are presently facing the oil sector at time when the politics in Nigeria is already volatile.'' Nigeria's worst pipeline disaster occurred in October 1998, when 1,000 people died in the southeastern town of Jesse, in Delta state. That explosion happened as hundreds of people gathered to scoop up gasoline leaking from the pipeline.

To contact the reporter on this story: Julie Ziegler in Lagos at jziegler@bloomberg.net Last Updated: May 12, 2006 12:31 EDT