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2007-01-09 00:29
Blood for Oil - The Niger Delta Crisis
Tags: blood for oil, nigerian oil and gas market, Politics & power, conflict in niger delta
According to Martin Bashir and Vanity Fair Contributor Sebastian Junger.. the U.S could be in for a major recession because of Nigerian Militants staging war against the US companies harvesting oil from the US's 5th Largest supply hub, the Niger Delta. This has been an ongoing struggle since the early 90's but recently has gotten so bad, no one can turn the blind eye to it anymore.
Could a bunch of Nigerian militants in speedboats bring about a U.S. recession? Blowing up facilities and taking hostages, they are wreaking havoc on the oil production of America's fifth-largest supplier. Deep in the Niger-delta swamps, the author meets the nightmarish result of four decades of corruption.
[ Read The Whole Article Here ]
They have kidnapped several oil workers, firebombed and done
mass damage. They don't stop unless a hefty ransom is
paid.
Their reasoning? 400 Billion has been stolen over the last decade from Nigeria. Yes 400 Billion, from the oil industry alone! That's 242 youtube Google acquisitions. Nothing has gone back to the people of this country, it's still one of the poorest places to be in the world! To top it off, the effects the oil industry have done to the land in Nigeria is absolutely astonishing.
Large count of infant fatality due to air born gases and
contamination of waters, major problems with acid rain corroding
their buildings, rails, vehicles, utensils tools, boats etc.. The
fish count has dropped significantly as well from the pollution in
the waters. All they can find for food is tiny minnows and shell
craps. Not enough to feed the families or even to resell to make
income as a fisherman to local markets anymore.
This is a major
problem that happened all over the world, and the MEND (Movement
for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) are out to firebomb,
kidnap and pretty make it really hard to do business in Nigeria. On
one account they forced Shell alone to cancel 477,000 barrels of
oil a day in export. Apparently if they continue the disruption and
combined with other terrorist attacks on the oil industry the
barrels of oil could reach $120. That means $5.00 a gallon at the
stations, or a middle income family would spend over 16% of it's
income on gas and oil alone.
Apparently 31 of 36 government officials in Nigeria are corrupt.
One that was recently arrested (and was the head of the oil and gas
portion of his region) was found to have over 8 different
multi-million dollar mansions and various properties around the
world, as well as a few dozen accounts sheltered by the British and
us officials for him, with billions in it.
One scary thought about this is MEND's goal is to eventually force all American oil production to pull out of Nigeria, which would then lead the way for the Chinese to take over the drilling and get the oil supply they need to grow faster than they already are.
Quick Fact: the weapons they are using are apparently very high end, and alot of money is fueling MEND's efforts. They are not typical weapons you would find anywhere near an African war site.
Follow up information can be found at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_in_the_Niger_Delta
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