More bad news for the petroleum industry:

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta [MEND] has given oil companies and their employees until midnight on Friday night to leave the region.

It recently blew up two oil pipelines, held four foreign oil workers hostage and sabotaged two major oilfields.

The group wants greater control of the oil wealth produced on their land.

The warning came as militants and the army exchanged fire after a government helicopter gunship attacked barges allegedly used by smugglers to transport stolen crude oil.

This seems to be the nature of artifically high concentratons and control of “natural” resources, which I wrote about here. The rebels are apparently smuggling oil out in exchange for weapons in Eastern Europe. The economic considerations are obvious and bring to mind the massive impact biofuel could have on both weapon exports and the related fight for control of petroleum.