Shell Rig Workers In Nigeria Taken Hostage In Pay Dispute

Foreign workers including one British man on a Royal Dutch Shell oil platform in the Niger Delta have been taken hostage in a pay dispute, the Associated Press reported. It is the third time this year hostages have been taken in wage disputes, usually by community groups who release the workers unharmed, the AP said.
Update:Thursday evening, an UpstreamOnline report said an American was among those kidnapped. The oil industry trade publicaion also said that new reports that workers were taken hostage from an ExxonMobil rig, its Yoho platform, on Thursday were denied by the oil giant.

The four workers were seized by three boatloads of men who approached the rig, probably under cover of darkness, and took the men with them when they left.

Here is the AP story:

Foreign Oil Workers Kidnapped in Nigeria By DULUE MBACHU, Associated Press Writer

LAGOS, Nigeria - Gunmen stormed an offshore oil platform run Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria and kidnapped four foreign oil workers, a company official said Thursday.

Assailants in three boats seized the four oil workers from a support vessel attached to Shell's EA oil platform off the southern oil-rich Niger Delta on Wednesday afternoon, Shell spokesman Andy Corrigan said by telephone from London.

Corrigan said it was unclear if the hostages were working for Shell or one of its contractors. He declined to give further details, including the nationalities of those abducted, "for safety and security reasons."

Graeme Bannatyne, spokesman for the British Embassy in Nigeria, said it believed one of its nationals was among the hostages.

Local communities in Nigeria have been demanding a greater share of revenues from the oil flowing from their land for years. Hostage-taking is common, and kidnapped workers are usually released unharmed.

Shell workers running the EA platform have been taken hostage twice in the past year over disputes with neighboring communities, who accuse the company of reneging on a promise to undertake development projects for their impoverished region.

A Croatian was seized in December 2004 and freed days later. Two Germans and four Nigerian oil workers were similarly taken hostage in June and later freed.

Nigeria produces about 2.5 million barrels of oil a day.

Associated Press reporter Thomas Wagner in London contributed to this report