Nigeria Rebels Warn of More Hits on Oil Sites

Militants behind attacks aimed at disrupting Nigeria’s oil exports said Wednesday that they would target all producers in the country, in a message singling out U.S.-based Chevron Corp.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which has attacked oil facilities run by Royal Dutch Shell and kidnapped four of its foreign workers, said it had also targeted installations run by France’s Total and Italy’s Agip, a unit of ENI.

“We have decided not to limit our attacks to Shell oil as our ultimate aim is to prevent Nigeria from exporting oil,” the militant group said in an e-mailed statement to Reuters.

The kidnappers’ 48-hour deadline expired Wednesday with no word on the hostages, from the United States, Britain, Bulgaria and Honduras.

The announcement helped send oil prices to a four-month high amid concerns about the OPEC cartel’s capacity to meet demand. Nigeria is a leading member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

U.S. crude oil climbed to $66.91 a barrel, the highest since Sept. 30, before receding to $66.50. London Brent crude was up 5 cents at $64.95.

Speaking after the hostage deadline, Nigerian Information Minister Frank Nweke told CNN: “The security authorities ... are very much in contact with these people and the discussions are ongoing ... and we do not expect they would take any of these extreme measures which they have threatened to take.”

So far, Shell is the only major operator to have said it suffered at the hands of the ethnic Ijaw militants, who are demanding greater control over the delta’s enormous oil wealth for impoverished residents.

“The reports of attacks on Agip and Total flow stations are correct,” the group said. “We will attack all oil companies, including Chevron facilities.”

Chevron spokesman Don Campbell said the firm was monitoring the situation. “We have made no plans to shut down production,” he said.

The monthlong campaign against oil pipelines and platforms in the delta has led Shell to reduce production by 221,000 barrels a day -- roughly a tenth of the output from Nigeria, the world’s eighth-largest exporter.