Nigeria production, which fell to the lowest level in a decade in April, has been cut a further this month by rebel assaults on Royal Dutch Shell Plc pipelines. OPEC said yesterday it doesn’t need to increase supplies, even as its president warned prices may reach $200 a barrel.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Nigerian crude output has been cut by militant attacks and may return within two weeks, a government official said yesterday.

The settling companies include units of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, ConocoPhillips, the second- largest U.S. refiner, Marathon Oil Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, Valero Energy Corp. and Sunoco Inc. Chevron is the second-largest U.S. oil company. BP is Europe’ssecond- largest oil company.

May 7 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, said it’s unable to meet a 2008 deadline to end gas- flaring in Nigeria because of a lack of security in the region and funding shortfalls

May 7 (Bloomberg) — Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, plans to add 14,000 engineers, geologists and roughnecks within three years as it develops the biggest crude discovery in the Western Hemisphere since 1976.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said a militant attack over the weekend damaged a pump station in Nigeria, where violence has cut exports from Africa’s biggest oil producer.

A weekend attack in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, forced Royal Dutch Shell Plc to reduce output, the Associated Press reported May 3, citing the company. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, claimed responsibility for the assault.

May 5 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose above $120 a barrel to a record in New York on concern that production disruptions in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer, will limit supplies.

Rebel attacks on an oil-transfer facility in Africa’s biggest producer have forced Royal Dutch Shell Plc to reduce output, the Associated Press reported May 3, citing the company.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies could cost $15 billion a year at last year’s profit levels, a campaign adviser said. The plan would target profit from the biggest oil companies by taxing each barrel of oil costing more than $80, according to a fact sheet on the proposal.