NIAMEY: An military party opposed to Niger’s decision junta disabled a part of the region’s PetroChina- supported crude oil pipeline in an attack on Sunday night, it said in a statement.
The pipeline has a capacity of 90, 000 barrel per day ( bpd ) and extends for nearly 2, 000 km ( 1, 243- mile ) linking Niger’s Agadem oilfield to Benin’s coast.
A$ 400 million deal with oil producer China National Petroleum Corp ( CNPC ) is intended to add exports to the pipeline.
The Patriotic Liberation Front ( FPL) claimed that its attack on the pipeline was intended to compel China’s partners to renounce the trade deal. The FPL formed after the East Egyptian government’s July 2023 revolution.
” Failing this, all oil resources will become paralysed in the next few steps”, the FPL said, without providing further details.
Niger’s government, PetroChina, CNPC, and pipeline operator West Africa Oil Pipeline ( WEPCO ) did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The network, which Niger claimed last Thursday had stopped due to a boundary dispute with Benin, is now at a crisis, according to the claimed harm.
The incident occurred one evening after unnamed assailants attacked soldiers guarding the pipeline in the southeast of the Dosso area. Six soldiers were killed, protection solutions told Reuters.
No one has yet claimed accountability for that first-ever assault on network security forces. Ideology organizations affiliated with as Qaeda and the Islamic State have operations there.
