Nigeria's prominent militants group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said Monday that it blew up Chevron Nigeria Limited flow station at Abiteye in Warri, capital of southeast Nigeria's Delta State.

It was learnt that the heavily armed militants stormed the oil facility at about 2:00 a.m local time and shot sporadically. The equally heavily armed soldiers fought the invading hoodlums for about four hours before repelling the assailants.

The militant group said its Hurricane Piper Alpha hit the Abiteye flow station triggering another system failure which resulted in massive fire outbreak that consumed the entire facility.

It said the attack was a result of the presence of war criminals of the Nigerian Army on the Chevron facility.

MEND suspects the flow station located in Delta state must have been harbouring war criminals of the Nigerian army as they make an excellent conductor for the lightning that accompanies hurricanes, the group said in an online statement on Monday.

"To avoid this reoccurring situation, MEND advised oil companies operating in the region to discard the presence of soldiers in their facilities and replace them with justice in other to safe guard their smooth operations," it said.

"Our technical advice to oil company systems and electrical engineers is simply to remove and discard the causative factor which we have identified above, then replace it with justice and that should do the trick," Jomo Gbomo, MEND spokesman, said in the statement.

It also advised all Niger Delta indigenes residing in the northern part of the country, including Abuja, to return home within the next eight weeks because a major event will occur in that part of the country and reprisal attacks directed at them cannot be ruled out.

"The same applies to the Northerners residing in the Niger Delta axis," it warned.

The group said after destroying the entire oil infrastructure in Delta State, the hurricane would move to the neighbouring states of Bayelsa and Rivers before passing through the remaining states of Ondo, Edo, and Akwa Ibom and then finally head off-shore.

Reacting to the militants, the Joint Task Force code-named Operation Restore Hope said its operatives guarding the facilities foiled the attack by suspected militants after heavy exchange of gunfire.

Rabe Abubakar, the military spokesman, told Xinhua in an interview on Monday in Warri that the suspected militants came in dozens to attack the facility which was repelled by the soldiers stationed on the facilities.

"The hoodlums were over powered by our troops and forced to flee in disarray with various degree of gun shot wounds while there was no casualty on our side and the facility was secured," he said.

It was reported that four of the militants were arrested while many of them were killed during the encounter with the security operatives.

"We did not sleep till this morning Monday because of heavy exchange of gun shots between the soldiers and the militants, it was like a war zone, real war situation but I think the soldiers gave them a good fight," a worker of Chevron who confirmed the gun battle told Xinhua on phone.

General Manager of Chevron Femi Odumabo could not be reached for comments.