Militants launched the latest in a string of attacks on Nigeria's vulnerable oil pipeline network Friday as striking workers began shutting down crude output from a major producer in Africa's biggest petroleum industry, according to The Associated Press. With oil prices near all-time highs, militants seeking more funds for their impoverished region and workers hoping for a pay raise used high prices as political leverage to achieve their aims _ dealing a rare double blow to Nigeria's oil industry, the AP reported. Oil prices surged ever closer to the US$120 a barrel mark after the main militant group in southern Nigeria said Friday it had sabotaged another pipeline. The Royal Dutch Shell PLC joint venture in Nigeria confirmed that one of its pipes had been hit, and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta promised more violence. «Our candid advice to the oil majors is that they should not waste their time repairing any lines as we will continue to sabotage them,» the militants said in an e-mail statement announcing the Thursday attack. «We have time on our side and there is so much to be destroyed.»
