Throughout the year, Nigeria's oil sector has been caught in a cycle of sporadic attacks and fitful negotiations to resolve local grievances and restore peace -- and oil production -- in the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta Avengers militant group announced the week of Nov. 14 that they had attacked three pipelines leading to the Bonny export facility in Bayelsa state. Two weeks earlier, an offshoot of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) struck the Trans Forcados pipeline, which had recently been repaired after a bombing in February knocked roughly 200,000 barrels per day in production offline. These and other attacks have been devastating for the country's oil production, which has rarely surpassed 2 million bpd over the past few years, having peaked at 2.65 million bpd in 2005. But militancy is just one of many problems for Nigeria's oil industry. Until the country can address...
