Major disruption reported at Nigeria oil field run by Italian firm Eni SpA in restive region

Major disruption at Italian oil field in Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria — Italian oil company Eni SpA said Wednesday a disruption at its subsidiary’s Brass River oil operation had cut production back by 12,000 barrels a day in the Niger Delta, an area often beset by militant attacks.

A Eni spokesman told The Associated Press the disruption occurred Wednesday and pushed the company into declaring force majeure — meaning it is impossible for the oil company to cover the promised supply from the field.

The company had teams in the field to explore its pipelines there to see what caused the disruption, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with company policy.

He did not rule out a possible attack by militants in the region, who have waged a low-level war against oil companies since January 2006 over the pollution and poverty affecting the Niger Delta. Thieves also tap into pipelines crisscrossing the delta to steal oil, sometimes causing the line to fail.

Lt. Col. Timothy Antigha, a military spokesman, confirmed the disruption but said he didn’t know if militants played any part in the attack.

“At the moment, it is not alleged that it was,” Antigha said.

A spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the region’s largest militant group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Eni’s subsidiary, Agip, runs the Brass River operation in concert with the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. At its height, the oil fields and processing plant around the town of Brass exported some 200,000 barrels of oil daily.

But attacks on the project have cut into production over the last four years. Houston-based ConocoPhillips, a partner with Eni in the Brass River fields, reported getting only 18,000 barrels of oil a day there in 2008.

Spokesmen for ConocoPhillips did not return a call for comment Wednesday.

Attacks in the delta have sharply increased global oil prices in the past and could in the future. Nigeria exported almost 1 million barrels of crude a day to U.S. in January alone, more than Saudi Arabia.

A government-sponsored amnesty program for militants quieted much of the violence in Niger Delta toward the end of last year. However, the peace deal now appears to be faltering, especially after militants detonated two car bombs on March 15 during a newspaper-sponsored discussion about the amnesty program.