Army, Militants In Gun Battle

Nigerian security forces repelled an attack by gunmen, on an Exxon Mobil housing compound in Eket, Akwa Ibom state, security sources said, today.

The attack on the U.S. energy giant’s compound in Eket, where security measures were reinforced in December, following a rise in violence in Akwa Ibom state, occured around 10 p.m., on Tuesday, the sources said.

“The shooting lasted about 30 minutes … All residents have been accounted for,” one of the sources said, adding that there were no civilian casualties. A second source said the attackers had been repelled on the waterways around the compound and had not gotten inside the site.

Exxon Mobil officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Insecurity in the Niger Delta has largely focused on the three main oil-producing states of Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa, but there have been a growing number of attacks in Akwa Ibom, further east, towards Cameroon.

Armed men attacked an Exxon oil platform off Akwa Ibom last month, while in December, gunmen attacked a convoy belonging to Exxon’s local unit, MPN, as it travelled towards the nearby Qua Iboe oil terminal in an apparent failed kidnap attempt.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the region’s main militant group, called off a 5-month-old ceasefire at the end of January, warning of a “sweeping assault” on Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

The group has not carried out any major strikes which have impeded production since the end of the ceasefire, but it has warned that kidnapping “high-value”

U.S. and European oil workers remains part of its strategy.