US oil executive killed in Nigeria

[MaineDem]

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - A U.S. oil executive employed by Baker Hughes was killed in an apparently targeted attack in Nigeria's southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt on Wednesday, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear if the attack was related to a five-month campaign by militants in the Niger Delta to cripple the oil industry in the world's eighth largest exporter, but a diplomat and an oil company source said they thought not.

"The American was shot by a man on a motorcycle. The motorcycle pulled up beside him and shot him," Rivers State Police Commissioner Samuel Agbetuyi told Reuters.

Baker Hughes was not available for comment.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/05/10/us_oil_executive_killed_in_nigeria/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News

[seafan]

1. Found this from 2002:

Baker Hughes Under SEC Investigation

April 01, 2002

Baker Hughes Incorporated disclosed that the company has been advised that the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice are conducting investigations into allegations of violations of law relating to Nigeria and other related matters.

Last week, a former region operations manager for the company's oil and gas drilling operations in Nigeria filed a lawsuit against his former employer, claiming the company fired him for refusing to pay a bribe to a Nigerian oil official.

Ferguson, a British national who was overseeing a division of Baker Hughes' operations in Nigeria, filed the lawsuit. He said he lost his job five months after refusing to give a share of the company's contract revenues to the Nigerian official. According to Ferguson's lawsuit, Baker Hughes was bidding on an oil and gas project with the Shell Petroleum Development Co. of Nigeria in 1999. Ferguson and another Baker Hughes manager in Nigeria were allegedly informed by a manager of Western Geophysical, a company now owned by Baker Hughes, that his company had an inside contact at Shell Nigeria who agreed to give Baker Hughes a two-year contract to drill the wells if he received a percentage of the gross revenue. Ferguson complained to the company's human resources department about the bribes. He was then transferred to another project in the United States, according to Ferguson's attorney. Five months later, in October 2001, he was laid off.

snip

[cliss]

3. Wow. Thanks for the

insight. That's amazing stuff in there. (I haven't read the entire link, but I'm going to ASAP).

It seems that the oil companies feel they OWN that Nigerian oil, 101%. All for them, none for the Nigerians.

I'd say this matter is not settled until that little equation changes.:smoke:

[Roland99]

2. Sad for his family but is this a sign that the Nigerian gov't is corrupt

as hell and probably moreso than Iraq?

[One Honest Guy]

4. "targeted attack"

Hilarious! Bias much? Does it matter that the various quasi-autonomist and terrorists groups in south Nigeria are in fact Christian? I think so, hence the term "targeted attack".

[seafan]

5. Nigerians demanding more local control over oil wealth and environment

From April 17, 2006, in NYT

Just as things seemed to be calming down in the delta region of Nigeria after a spate of kidnappings and insurgent attacks, the militant group calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta MEND announced last week that it was planning new violence against oil facilities in the region. Apparently unconcerned about tipping its hand to the authorities, MEND even gave a date for the start of its new campaign: April 25.

snip

This really should serve notice to Olusegun Obasanjo, president of Africa's most populous country, Nigeria. MEND's tactics--kidnapping oil workers, attacking facilities, killing government soldiers--are despicable and deserve international condemnation. But the demand for more local control over oil wealth cannot be dismissed just because of its source.

Ever since Shell discovered oil in the Niger Delta back in 1956, revenue from oil wells has gone to line the pockets of Nigeria's elite: military dictators and corrupt federal and local government officials. Very little has gone to help the impoverished communities in the delta, which remain among the poorest in the world. Environment degradation, caused by oil slicks and gas flares, has gone untreated.

Under Nigerian law, oil revenues go to the federal government, which then passes on a percentage to the states. In 2004, for instance, the 36 Nigerian states received $6.2 billion. Supposedly, about one-third of that went to the four major oil-producing states. But thanks to theft, corruption, and mismanagement, on both the federal and state levels, very little of that money reached the local communities.

snip

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=31304

[One Honest Guy]

6. "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta"

Biafra redux! There will never be an independent and oil rich Christian nation carved out of southern Nigeria, no matter how much Pat Robertson wished it to be true. Make no mistake, this is America's and west's energy policy for the next 40 years. Creation of some kind of Christian Saudi Arabia in central Africa. Exactly like Saudi Arabia, except friendlier. Biafra demonstrated this to be an impossibility.