As previously promised, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta attacked two Shell oil pipelines on July 28, as a way of rebutting charges that it had taken government money in order to leave such infrastructure alone.

“In keeping with our pledge to resume pipeline attacks within the next 30 days, detonation engineers backed by heavily armed fighters … sabotaged two major pipelines in Rivers state of Nigeria,” MEND said.

Even before the attack, Nigeria’s output was already 20% below normal following a sustained campaign by MEND to target the nation’s oil extracting infrastructure. These attacks have been identified as a major reason for high global oil prices.