LAGOS (AFP) — Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell said Saturday it had slightly reduced oil production following a militant attack on a major supply pipeline in southern Nigeria.

“We discovered there was a major leak on the Greater Port Harcourt swamp pipeline. The leak appears to have been caused by explosives. We have isolated the line preparatory to repairs,” Shell spokesman in Lagos Tony Okonedo told AFP.

“Small quantities of oil have been shut in to allow for necessary repairs,” he added, referring to the production cut, though refusing to disclose the exact amount.

Okonedo said Thursday’s attack by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) on the pipeline feeding the Bonny exports terminal had also caused a minor crude spill.

He said the company was mobilising engineers Saturday to contain the spill.

World energy prices rebounded to a new record high of 117 dollars a barrel on Friday after MEND claimed responsibility for the attack, promising “many more” similar ones.

The pipeline was connected to the Bonny exports terminal — the largest in the country with a storage capacity of around seven million barrels of crude oil.

Shell, Nigeria’s largest oil operator accounting for around half of the country’s 2.1 million barrels per day output, has seen a wave of attacks on its facilities in recent months.

MEND, which came to prominence in early 2006, has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Nigeria’s oil industry and related sectors in the past two years.

The group on Saturday accused Nigerian soldiers of raiding a community in the delta.

It said in an e-mail statement to AFP that the military Joint Task Force policing the region on Thursday “unleashed a cowardly attack on the defenseless community of Opuama in the Warri north local government of Delta.”

It said the military burned down houses with residents including women and children who were still asleep inside.

“We are told that scores of aged men and youths have been arrested and taken away by the Joint Task Force,” it added.

A spokesman for the joint task force refused to confirm the attack.