Can Nigerian rebels really attack offshore oil?

Nigeria's infamously audacious rebel consortium, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), issued a particularly strong threat this morning: to "move [attacks on oil facilities] into the neighboring states of Bayelsa and Rivers before passing through the remaining states of Ondo, Edo, and Akwa Ibom then finally head off-shore."

 

Yikes. Can they really move off shore?

 

The first thing to say is that MEND is a master of big talk and less-big action. In the time I have followed Nigeria, I have recieved literally hundreds of MEND's e-mails promising to unleash all-out war on the Nigerian state. Haven't seen that yet -- though they've certainly gotten closer than ever in recent months, claiming five attacks on oil facilities so far just in June.

 

Still, the offshore threat actually bears some weighing. The militants did carry out one such assault last year on a Royal Dutch Shell platform. And judging from the nice cars and designer clothes that the rebels sport around town, it's likely they have (or have had in the past) the money to buy the equipment that such an operation would warrant. Bunkering, bribes, and ransoms are pretty lucrative these days.

 

In some ways, however, the more important question is not whether they can attack offshore, but whether oil companies believe they will. The attacks have already cut oil production by nearly a third since 2006. Profit margins in the region were already low before oil prices plummeted; now, the bottom line can't be looking good. If enough production gets shut down (whether in response or anticipation to attacks) and security budgets rise further, Nigeria oil operations might not be worth the trouble.

 

This is surely what MEND hopes -- at least in the short term. And their calculus, however twisted, might be correct: collapsed oil profits (which today make up a solid 85 percent of government revenues) would see the Nigerian state on its knees.