AKPO OIL PLATFORM (AFP) -- French Prime Minister Francois Fillon
travelled to the Niger Delta, the restive heart of Nigeria's oil
industry, Saturday amid tight security.
His journey, part of a two-day visit to Nigeria, included a
brief trip by helicopter to a facility on Total's (TOT) Akpo oil
and gas field, accompanied by Total chairman Christophe de
Margerie.
Before visiting Akpo, Fillon, accompanied by a police and army
escort of several dozen heavily armed men equipped with light
armored vehicles, visited a French-owned shipyard in Onne, the
nearest seaport to Nigeria's major oil town Port Harcourt.
"The Niger Delta is a strategic region" and a "major economic
zone", said Fillon, who on Friday told the Nigerian armed forces
that France could help pacify this region where Total pumps 15
percent of its production in Africa.
The visit went ahead despite a warning from the Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta that it was declaring the whole
Niger Delta a no-fly zone in protest at army raids on militant
camps.
There has been an escalation of fighting in the Niger Delta over
the past week and the waterways of this region of creeks and swamps
are frequently the scene of pirate attacks.
The Akpo field, 70 miles from the Nigerian coast, pumps oil from
depths of between 3,000 and 3,800 meters.
"This is a chance for me to come and pay homage to a very great
French company," Fillon said, dismissing suggestions that the trip
was a "public relations operation for Total."
Fillon, who started his Africa trip by a two-day visit to
Cameroon, will return to France on Saturday night.