Bufflehead Cabin

It warms my heart that Iraq’s oil reserves are being auctioned off to these same oil companies. What could go wrong?

Spurning a Nigerian government offer of amnesty, members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) have continued a series of attacks on oil installations. The group and its allies have now shut down a total of about 900,000 barrels a day, according to Argus Global Markets, an industry newsletter. In an e-mail yesterday, the insurgents claimed to have set fire to Shell’s Forcados terminal with a “massive explosion” and to have sunk a Nigerian military patrol boat with more than 20 soldiers on board.

News of the attack helped prop up oil prices, which rose $2.33 a barrel, or 3.4 percent, to $71.49 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday.