Oil companies and even Nigerian officials are losing faith in a deal anytime soon with militants who have slashed the nation’s oil output, casting doubt on a production recovery in what is typically Africa’s largest oil exporter. Talk in the country has shifted from ceasefire optimism, and oil companies’ assurances that repairs were underway, to hedged comments from the government and radio silence from oil majors. A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers claimed the bulk of them, announcing strikes on Twitter even before oil majors themselves knew their remote pipelines had been hit. “This is also about frustrations of younger people coming up in the Niger Delta and needs not having been addressed,” Donnelly said. But the Avengers call the country a “failed state,” while youth groups in the region remain deeply sceptical of the oil industry.

Source: The North Africa Journal August 21, 2016 09:33 UTC