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Nigeria's Oil Minister Edmund Daukoru said Sunday that there was no risk to the country's oil production in the wake of the arrest in the U.K. of the governor of one of its largest oil-producing states.
VIENNA -(Dow Jones)- Nigeria's Oil Minister Edmund Daukoru said Sunday that there was no risk to the country's oil production in the wake of the arrest in the U.K. of the governor of one of its largest oil-producing states.
The arrest Thursday at Heathrow Airport of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of Bayelsa State in the southern Niger delta region, has spurred threats to U.K. interests by his supporters.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) has significant oil operations in Bayelsa.
Ahead of an Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting in Vienna, Daukoru was asked if Nigeria's production was at risk. "Absolutely not, " he said.
Saturday, members of the Ijaw Youth Council, a coalition of associations from the ethnic group Alamieyeseigha draws power from, told Dow Jones Newswires they wouldn't guarantee the safety of U.K. interests in the state.
"We advise the British authorities and their collaborators in the federal government of Nigeria to immediately release our number one citizen, otherwise we cannot continue to guarantee the safety of their investment and citizens in our territories," the Council said in a statement.
A police spokesman in London told AP that a man was arrested by officers from London's Specialist and Economic Crime Unit. No charges have been laid and he was released on bail.
In a television interview broadcast on BBC World Sunday, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo said: "The fact that the police arrested this man" showed Nigeria's heightened "anti corruption measures are working."
Investigators could probe anyone in Nigeria, including the president, Obasanjo said: "We're telling the world there are no sacred cows."
Bayelsa state receives tens of millions of dollars from the federal government every month, as its share of national oil revenues.
Bayelsa is one of the largest oil-producing states in OPEC member Nigeria, and the governor's opponents have for years accused him of large-scale corruption.
Alamieyeseigha is a member of President Olusegun Obasanjo's ruling party, but he has increasingly found himself at odds with the president over demands that his ethnic Ijaw people get a greater share of oil revenues.
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell, is Nigeria's largest oil-producing company, with operations in Bayelsa. SPDC says it and its joint venture partners pump up to 1 million barrels a day and have the capacity to produce more than 1.3 million barrels of oil daily.
Daukoru said Sunday that Nigeria is currently pumping some 2.43 million barrels a day.
-By Adam Smallman, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0) 20 7842 9343; adam.smallman@ dowjones.com (Vincent Nwanma in Lagos and Peter Millard in Vienna contributed to this article.)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires