January 30, 2006

Nigerian militants free foreign oil workers

By Austin Ekeinde

YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian militants released four foreign oil workers on Monday, ending a 19-day hostage crisis, but threatened to resume attacks on oil facilities in the world's eighth largest exporter.

The hostages -- an American, Briton, Bulgarian and Honduran -- were abducted from an offshore oilfield in the southern Niger Delta on Jan. 11 in one of a six-week series of attacks on oil platforms and pipelines which forced the OPEC oil producer to cut output by a tenth.

Petrol tankers load fuel from a depot in Lagos, Nigeria January 29, 2006. igerian militants released four foreign oil workers on Monday, ending a 19-day hostage crisis, but threatened to resume attacks on oil facilities in the world's eighth largest exporter. (REUTERS/George Esiri)

"They have all been released. They are all alive and well," said a spokesman for the southern state of Bayelsa, where the kidnapping occurred.

The four men were flown to the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

The militants had demanded more local control over the delta's oil wealth, compensation for oil pollution and the release of two Ijaw leaders. The Ijaw are the biggest ethnic group in the delta.

"The release of the hostages was done purely on humanitarian grounds and no request was made for money," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an email.

"This release does not signify a ceasefire or softening of our position to destroy the oil export capability of the Nigerian government," it added.

A militant source familiar with the situation said 100 million naira ($770,000) was paid for the hostages' release.

The militant group reiterated a warning to foreigners to leave the delta, which produces most of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels a day, and said they aimed to cut oil exports by 30 percent in February.

OIL OUTPUT RESUMES

Royal Dutch Shell was forced to cut 221,000 barrels a day after two attacks in mid-January, but has partially resumed output at its 115,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) E.A. oilfield where the kidnapping occurred, industry sources said.

However, Shell has no immediate plans to resume repairs to the 106,000 bpd Forcados crude oil pipeline, which was damaged in a Jan. 13 explosion, the sources added.

Oil industry kidnappings and sabotage are regular occurrences in the Niger Delta, where poor fishing villages are reluctant host to a multi-billion dollar industry.

Hundreds of people are killed every year in ethnic fighting, political violence and street crime.

Industry officials estimate that about 100,000 barrels a day of crude oil is stolen from pipelines in the delta by criminal syndicates working with international smuggling rings.

On Sunday, police said about 20 armed men stormed the headquarters of a South Korean oil services company in the delta and stole more than $300,000 in the latest attack on foreign firms. There were no casualties.

The attack occurred only five days after nine men were killed during an attack on the offices of Italian oil company Agip, a unit of ENI. The attackers robbed a bank on the premises.

The attacks have forced Shell to withdraw more than 500 employees from the delta, and hundreds more contractors have also fled.

Oil unions have threatened to pull out of the delta if security deteriorates further.

With oil markets already nervous about tension between the West and Iran, the unrest in Nigeria's oil heartland has contributed to a rise in prices to four-month highs of more than $67 a barrel.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn and Tom Ashby in Lagos)

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