Nigeria's oil output was cut by around half on Monday as a strike by workers at Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) shut in nearly all its production and recent attacks by Niger Delta rebels hit Royal Dutch Shell.

Exxon said it had shut virtually all of its Nigerian output, close to 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), due to the five-day-old strike, equivalent to nearly 40 percent of output from the world's eighth largest oil exporter.

The rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said, meanwhile, it had learned from sources at Shell that an attack on a major pipeline on Thursday had forced the company to shut-in an additional 350,000 bpd of production. ... Read full article