LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian militant group said yesterday that it had attacked a major oil pipeline operated by a Royal Dutch Shell PLC subsidiary in Nigeria, though the international oil giant could not confirm the attack occurred.

Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest oil producers and reports of attacks in the restive, oil-rich Niger Delta have the potential to affect oil production in Nigeria and oil prices worldwide.

The Joint Revolutionary Council issued a statement yesterday saying its fighters disabled a Shell pipeline in Rivers state that connects several flow stations to the company’s Bonny export terminal. The group claimed yesterday’s attack came after police abducted a local chief, prompting them to realise that “only through (an) armed struggle for independence that our people can be freed”.

“We believe that it will be a betrayal and disservice to our people if we continue to preach non-violence in the face of this madness,” the group said.

The Joint Revolutionary Council is a smaller militant group that once claimed to be allied with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main militant force in the Delta. It has carried out attacks in the past, some of which MEND later denied being involved in.

A Shell spokesman dismissed the attack claim.

“We have no report of an incident in our operation,” spokesman Tony Okonedo said.

Militants in the Niger Delta have attacked pipelines, kidnapped petroleum company employees and fought government troops since January 2006. They demand that the federal government send more oil-industry funds to Nigeria’s southern region, which remains poor despite five decades of oil production.

That violence has cut Nigeria’s oil production by about one million barrels a day, allowing Angola to surge ahead as Africa’s top oil producer. Still, Nigeria remains the number three crude oil supplier to the US, offering the country nearly a million barrels a day in November, according to US government statistics.

However, the main militant group there and others agreed to a cease-fire brokered by President Umaru Yar’Adua in recent months. Yar’Adua extended an amnesty deal with cash payments to former fighters and the promise of sending more oil money to the region to improve roads and government services.

The deal now appears in jeopardy after Yar’Adua, long troubled by kidney problems, left the country in November for treatment of a heart condition in Saudi Arabia. He has yet to return, prompting MEND and other militants to begin claiming new attacks in the region.

Only one Shell pipeline has been broken since hostilities began again, a line running through Bayelsa State that the company said oil thieves ruptured. However, MEND says that line was attacked by militants with explosives rather than thieves.