By Randy Fabi
ABUJA (Reuters) - The main militant group in Nigeria'soil-producing Niger Delta said on Monday it had attacked twomajor crude oil pipelines belonging to Royal Dutch Shell,giving support to world oil prices.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta(MEND), whose campaign of violence has caused the shutdown ofaround a fifth of Nigeria's oil since early 2006, said itsmembers conducted the attacks early Monday morning in thedelta.
"In keeping with our pledge to resume pipeline attackswithin the next thirty days, detonation engineers backed byheavily armed fighters ... sabotaged two major pipelines inRivers state of Nigeria," the group said in an e-mailedstatement.
Shell said it was investigating an apparent attack on itsNembe Creek crude oil pipeline, but could not confirm whetherany production was affected.
Industry sources said about 130,000 barrels per day ofcrude oil flows through the pipeline to the Bonny exportterminal.
U.S. crude oil prices found support from the attacks,rising to near $124 a barrel in early trading on Monday.
Last week, MEND warned it would target oil pipelines toprove it did not receive payments from the government to endits attacks on the oil sector in the world's eighth largestexporter.
The head of the state-run oil firm NNPC was quoted inNigerian newspapers last week as saying the company had paidmilitant groups $12 million to protect facilities in the delta.
NNPC later said it was quoted out of context and the moneywas given to the local community, not militants.
(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
