By Felix Onuah
ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua hasordered the country's armed forces to tighten security in theNiger Delta and hunt down militants behind an attack on Shell'smain offshore oil facility, his office said on Friday.
"The president has ... directed that security be beefed upat all oil facilities and installations in the Niger Delta toforestall further acts of terrorism by criminal elements in theregion," his office said in a statement.
Nigeria's armed forces and security agencies had been toldto take "all necessary action" to apprehend the militants whoattacked Royal Dutch Shell's Bonga oilfield, which lies some120 km (75 miles) offshore, in the early hours of Thursday.
The attack forced the Anglo-Dutch giant to stop productionat Bonga, cutting Nigeria's oil output by a tenth and shockingan industry that thought such deepwater sites in Nigeria wererelatively immune from sabotage.
Shell on Friday declared force majeure on oil shipments forJune and July from Bonga, which has a nameplate capacity of220,000 barrels per day, meaning it cannot guarantee to meetits contractual obligations.
The group that claimed responsibility for the attack -- theMovement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) --shrugged off the president's order over security.
"Empty talk from the commander-in-chief of an inept armedforces," it said in an email to Reuters.
MEND has mostly limited its strikes to bombing oilpipelines and kidnapping oil workers at onshore facilities inNigeria.
It warned after the Bonga attack that oil and gas tankersin Nigerian waters may become targets, raising the prospect ofa new campaign of sabotage in the waters of the Gulf of Guinea.
Nigeria's House of Representatives has called an emergencymeeting for Monday with the defence and oil ministers, nationalsecurity adviser and foreign oil firms to discuss the attack.
DARING STRIKE
Security experts said the Bonga attack was a coup for MEND,knocking out a significant portion of Nigerian output at a timewhen oil prices are highly sensitive to supply disruptions andmarking their first significant strike deep offshore.
It also came as President Yar'Adua's administrationprepares for a peace summit next month meant to address theunderlying causes of the unrest in the Niger Delta.
Politicians, local chiefs and splinter militia groups areexpected to attend but MEND and another group, the Ijaw YouthCouncil, have said they will not take part.
"Militants ... who continue to spurn the peace overtures ofthe federal government must be prepared to face the fullconsequence of taking up arms against their fatherland," thepresidency statement said.
Security analysts say those behind the attack on Bonga mayhave been a small group of well-trained fighters who have onlya loose attachment to the fragmented leadership of MEND itself.
(Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Randy Fabi)
