… Such as the Canada wildfire which has mothballed up to 1.5 million barrels in daily production (and which took a turn for the worse earlier this week, when new evacuations threatened the restart of oilsands facilities), but mostly the on going attacks shaking up, or rather down, Nigerian production, specifically affecting the region of the Niger River delta.

It is here where we meet a recently unknown group of militants, better known as the “Niger Delta Avengers” who are thought to be behind recent attacks on oil pipelines in the south.

As Bloomberg notes, “the Niger Delta Avengers have certainly been busy, forcing Shell’s Forcados terminal to shut in about 250,000 barrels of daily exports; and breaching an offshore Chevron facility in the 160,000 barrels per day Escravos system. In April, ENI had to declare force majeure, letting it stop shipments without breaching contracts — on exports of its Brass River grade after a pipeline fire.The country’s oil production has been severely disrupted by the attacks.”

To be sure, Nigeria has had a long history of dealing with militants who use attacks on oil to gain leverage. The previous wave of discontent, which hit a peak in 2009, only came to an end when President Yar’Adua offered amnesty, training programs and monthly cash payments to nearly 30,000 militants, at a yearly cost of about $500 million. Some leaders of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the militant group, got lucrative security contracts. In other words, the “solution” was appeasement, and as Europe knows very well, appeasement never works, and instead invites increasingly greater problems.

As BBC adds, the amnesty program, which provides tens of thousands of former oil militants with a monthly stipend from the government, stemmed the level of violence in the region after its introduction in 2009. But in the latest budget, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buharireduced funding for the program by 70%, and has spoken of phasing it out entirely by 2018.

Yes, in Nigeria paying blackmail is part of the state budget.

It gets better: critics accuse Mr Buhari, a Muslim northerner, of unfairly targeting communities in the southern, mainly Christian oil-producing regions, as part of his anti-corruption drive. Mr Buhari’s predecessor Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian, comes from the Niger Delta region.

In other words, the indirect accusation is that the current president of a country whose primary source of revenue is oil exports, has unleashed the current Nigerian oil supply crisis on his own due to his reduced support for the same militant groups which he knew would promptly step in an hold the country’s oil production for ransom until they too got paid off.

And this is where the Niger Delta Avengers come into play: the group who, by keeping half a million barrels in oil from the market, have catalyzed not only the latest rally in oil, but now effectively hold the fate of the price of oil in their hands.

But who are the Niger Delta Avengers?

Luckily, the group has its own website called, not surprisingly, Niger Delta Avengers, which while somewhat unoptimised is very social-media friendly and even has a convenient section allowing outside parties to contact the millitants.

Some other notable oddities: the website was created on February 3, 2016 using Godaddy as registrar.

The website has its own news blog, where it has posted such stories as “Niger Delta Avengers Zero Chevron Operations”, “STOP KILLING NIGER DELTANS IN THE GUISE OF ESCORTING OIL TANKERS”, and “KEEP YOUR THREAT TO YOURSELF MR. PRESIDENT; WE SHALL CONTINUE TO DO WHATEVER IS NECESSARY TO PROTECT THE NIGER DELTA INTEREST”, all authored by the same person, one Col. Madoch Agbinibo, NDA spokesman.

One interesting post which caught our attention explains Operation Red Economy from February 13, and which lays out the group’s genesis, agenda and demands.

And then there is another follow up post on the site’s home page titled “CONGRATS TO ALL STRIKE TEAM OF THE NIGER DELTA AVENGERS” which goes on to list the group’s successful accomplishments to date (key excerpts) and also touches on what the NDA supposedly wants.

So another group of “young, east-Europe educated idealists”, who have a “patriotic agenda” and are intent on achieving an independent state in southeast Nigeria. To do this they will blow up every piece of oil infrastructure in their way.

At least, unlike Hans Gruber, they don’t also demand the release of their ideological “revolutionary brothers and sisters” rotting away in some imperialist prison.

Meanwhile, the price of oil will remain high and keep rising as long as the NDA’s campaign continues oddly unopposed.

What is odd is how unexpectedly this group of African “freedom fighters” emerged, and created a website no less just as oil hit a 13 year low. One almost wonders if there was not certain western financial and military backing behind said group of “freedom fighters”, perhaps backing that has an interest in the price of oil going higher, and thus any sunk costs to fund and arm the NDA would be promptly recovered once oil jumped… as it has in the past week as a result of none other than Goldman highlighting Nigeria’s oil supply problems and making it the basis for their “bullish” (if only in the shorter-term) oil call.

Of course, that would never happen: after all, when in the history of the US has the country, either directly through the government or indirectly through the private sector, armed and funded offshore “rebel” groups to achieve specific national interest goals…