A community leader says Nigerian security forces are trying to disarm explosives planted on a state-owned oil pipeline that has been attacked by militants twice recently.

Dickson Ogugu, chairman of the Batan community, said the militants fled the pipeline after a shootout with armed guards. The militants then dynamited a barge, which sank Tuesday. It belonged to a contractor repairing damage from a bombing last week that cut supplies to Dutch-British multinational Shell's 400,000-barrel-a-day Forcados export terminal.

Ogugu said the dynamite remains on the same pipeline in the southern Niger Delta.

Last week's attack came hours after President Muhammadu Buhari held inconclusive talks with stakeholders to halt the militancy whose sabotage has thrown the oil-dependent West African nation into recession. (AP)