2nd UPDATE: Nigeria Militants Say Blew Up Agip Pipeline

The main militant group in Nigeria's Niger Delta said Friday it blew up a pipeline belonging to a subsidiary of Eni SpA (E), the latest of a string of attacks against oil companies.

Militants have escalated attacks on the oil industry in retaliation for an army offensive that started mid-May.

In an email, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said "a major pipeline which delivers crude oil to the Brass export terminal was blown up at the Nembe creek in Bayelsa state this morning Friday" by its fighters.

It said the pipeline belongs to Agip, a unit of Eni. Eni couldn't immediately comment. The Brass facility has a capacity of around 160,000 barrels a day.

Last month, Eni declared force majeure - a legal protection clause for not meeting contractual obligations to customers - on 52,000 barrels a day of crude from the Brass terminal.

The company said the force majeure, which was lifted after a week, was due to pipeline damage, without specifying if it was sabotage.

Chevron Corp. (CVX) and Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) have also been attacked by the militants. One attack alone in May cost Chevron 100,000 barrels a day in lost production.

In total, Nigeria estimates 1 million barrels a day of its output is down due to unrest but also to oil theft and lack of maintenance.

-Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 20 7842 9266; benoit.faucon@dowjones.com

(Liam Moloney in Rome contributed to this report.)

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