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Nigeria steps up efforts to release Dutch hostage
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 07 09 06
Nigeria stepped up efforts Friday to seek the release of a Dutch worker a day after he was kidnapped by members of the ethnic Ijaw community in the restive Niger Delta, a state government spokesman said.
"We have put the necessary machinery in motion to effect his release. I believe he will be released in the next couple of hours," Bayelsa State governor's spokesman Ekiyor Welson told AFP.
"What the youths in the community have done is criminality and no responsible government will allow it to continue," he said.
Michael Loss, an employee of British-based oil services firm Westminster Dredging, was abducted by youths from the Gbarain community on Thursday after they stormed the firm's site in speed boats.
Westminster Dredging is part of Royal Boskalis Westminster Group, a Dutch-based group that describes itself as the world's largest dredging contractor.
The company has been subcontracted by Nigerian firm Julius Berger, which has a contract in the region with Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell, an oil industry official told AFP.
Police said two suspects had been arrested in connection with the abduction, the latest in a series of hostage-takings that have rocked oil-rich Nigeria in recent months.
Since January this year, 32 foreign oil workers have been kidnapped in the oil-rich but restive Niger Delta by armed separatists and local communities who are demanding a larger share in oil revenues and compensation for the destruction of their ecosystem by oil exploration.
All of 31 previous captives have been released without harm after periods of detention ranging from several days to several weeks.
Nigeria produced 2.6 million barrels of oil per day, making it the world's sixth biggest exporter. Most of the oil comes from the Niger Delta and unrest there has led to a
20-percent reduction in the country's total production.
The Niger Delta, the main centre of oil production in Nigeria, is a 74,000 square kilometre swamp with more than 3,500 oil and gas installations, but majority of its inhabitants live in abject poverty, triggering militant and community violence.
AFP 07 0952 GMT 07 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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