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Three expatriate oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria
By Joel Olatunde Agoi
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 05 12 06
Three foreign oil workers were kidnapped on Thursday in the southern Nigerian oil rich Niger Delta, near the city of Port Harcourt, a day after another was shot dead, the police, industry and army sources said.
"They are three of them, one Italian but the others I do not know their nationalities. They work for Saipem," a subsidiary of ENI group of Italy, national police spokesman Haz Iwendi told AFP by telephone.
A army spokesman said that one of the other two kidnapped workers may be Indian.
"We are in charge of security and we are working to ensure that they are released as soon as possible, unharmed," said Iwendi.
"It is true, the kidnap of three of our workers took place today (Thursday) near Port Harcourt, but we have no comments to make on the issue now," an official at the Lagos headquarters of Saipem Contracting Nigeria Limited said by telephone, without disclosing his identity.
"We learnt that three foreign oil workers were kidnapped this morning. We don't have the details," a spokesman for an oil multinational told AFP, declining to be named.
Another industry official said the three men "were abducted from a vehicle on their way to work this morning."
An army spokesman in Port Harcourt, the hub of Nigeria's multi-billion-dollar oil industry, told AFP that the expatriate workers, including an Indian, had been abducted by members of a local community.
The foreign ministry in Rome told AFP one of the hostages was an Italian working for Saipem.
The abduction "could be linked to commercial-type demands," it said, adding that the ministry had "activated its contacts" and was following events very closely, principally via its embassy in Nigera.
Police spokesman Iwendi also said that their kidnap in Buguma, a local oil-rich community about 30 kilometres (18.75 miles) outside Port Harcourt, might be associated with a contract dispute between the oil company and the local workers.
"The community is angry that there is misunderstanding on their MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) and they are insisting that if they are paid in line with their MOU they will be released," he said.
An armed militant group in Niger Delta notorious for taking foreign oil workers hostage -- the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) -- has dissociated itself from this latest kidnapping.
"I heard three were taken by a community and will be released unharmed shortly.
This has nothing to do with us," the group's spokesman said in an e-mail to AFP.
Attacks by MEND since January have left at least 24 members of the security forces dead. The attacks have also cut Nigeria's exports of 2.6 million barrels per day by around a quarter, one of the factors forcing up world oil prices.
The group is seeking greater control of the Niger Delta's vast oil and gas wealth for its 22-million inhabitants.
Thirteen expatriate oil workers were abducted in two incidents earlier this year but were released after weeks of negotiations between the government, community leaders and the militants.
There have also been two car bomb attacks in the region, for which MEND has claimed responsibility.
On Wednesday, a US oil worker was shot dead in Port Harcourt by an unidentified gunman on a motorcycle.
Although MEND said it was not responsible, it has nonetheless threatened to carry out more attacks on oil firms and their staff unless they leave the region.
Despite being home to the country's oil wealth, the inhabitants of the region live in abject poverty and a polluted environment because of long years of oil exploration activities by the multinationals.
AFP 11 1710 GMT 05 06
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