(Ecofin Agency) - Nigeria has been battling with several attacks by militant which has been putting pressure on her economy, production and revenue.

At first it was Boko Haram now a new militant group called the Niger Delta Avengers has emerged destroying infrastructures, threatening oil and gas companies and heightening the tension in the Niger Delta region.

It is however, not clear what the motive of this new group is nor who is behind the new group but a statement attributed to them suggested that their demands are comparable to those of the militants who waged an insurgency until 2009 that slashed the country’s oil production.

Several militants became a part of an amnesty programme in 2009 after an insurgency in the oil-rich delta region, as most of Nigeria's oil wealth comes from the Niger Delta region. Past insurgent groups in the country had said that their fights were for the local people to benefit more from their region's natural resources.

This amnesty programme, which provides monthly income for tens of thousands of former oil militants from the government, reduced the level of violence in the region after it was introduced in 2009.

But in the recent budget, President Muhammadu Buhari had reduced the funds for the programme by 70%, and has even talked about cancelling it entirely by 2018.

The activities of this Niger Delta Avengers have forced Shell's Forcados terminal to shut in approximately 250,000 bpd of exports has damaged an offshore Chevron facility in the 160,000 bpd Escravos system.

According to Francis Perrin, the Chairman of Strategy and Energy Policy and the Editor of Arab Oil & Gas, the goal of this group are rather to destruction and blackmail as the same with other groups in the region.

“They seem to have some sense of humor (Avengers). The impact of these attacks are lower local and national production, as the Niger Delta area remains a key oil and gas region, more difficulties for refineries, more difficulties to supply refined products to the population, a reduction in oil exports and less oil revenues for the country. Business as usual, but it is not a very positive story for Nigeria of course. There is not one single cause which would explain all these problems. It is a mix of social and poverty issues, security issues, governance issues plus money and power. A very complex and potentially explosive cocktail,” he told Agence Ecofin.

The Nigerian government has been advised to resolve the re-emergence of militancy and oil pipelines vandalism in the oil rich Niger Delta region.

The ongoing fight against pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft in the region has not yielded the anticipated success and needs to be increased as the country continues to lose great income due to the explosion of oil pipelines by militants.

“A resurgence in militant attacks in Nigeria’s oil-producing region has cut output by as much as 600,000 barrels a day to 1.4 million a day and “massively diminished” the nation’s income,” Emmanuel Kachikwu, Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum Resources said.

The just signed federal budget is relying on a 2.2 million bpd production but output has been around 1.7 to 1.8m b/d for the past several months. Nigeria, as of this week is producing less than Angola.

These attacks if continue, will result in Nigeria witnessing a decline in its oil production, revenue and investments amongst all.

Anita Fatunji