Armed men overrun Shell oil station in volatile Niger delta

Dec 15, 2006, 14:06 GMT

Abuja - A group of armed men stormed a Shell oil flow station on Thursday, forcing the facility to shut down oil- processing, a company spokesman said Friday.

'The attack took place in the swamps of the Niger Delta, but details available to us are still sketchy,' Precious Okolobo told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Another Shell official said an unknown number of militants overran the Anglo-Dutch oil giant's facility on the Nun river in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta and still occupied the site on Friday morning.

'A group of armed people overran the facility. We reported the incident to authorities and the governor of the state has got his people to intervene,' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said the attack in the country's Bayelsa State interrupted oil- pumping, halting some 12,000 barrels per day. The late-afternoon incursion came the same day ministers at an OPEC meeting in Nigeria agreed to cut oil output by 500,000 barrels per day as of February 1.

The Shell official said he was not aware of any casualties and could not confirm how many workers were being held. He said they were all Nigerian.

Local reports in Bayelsa State were conflicting as some sources said two soldiers on guard duty at the facility were killed by the assailants, while other sources said it was only a navy officer that was killed.

Police in Bayelsa State have yet to confirm the attack.

Last week, three Italians and one Lebanese oil worker were kidnapped from an oil station belonging to Italy's Agip. Reports have said they are in good condition but have yet to be released.

There has been growing unrest in the Niger Delta, where militants calling for a greater say over the use of natural resources and protesting environmental destruction by oil companies have kidnapped dozens of expatriate workers, usually releasing them unharmed after a short period.

In October, militants took more than 40 oil workers hostage for two days. In another incident, seven hostages, including four Scots, were released unharmed after being held for three weeks.

Some kidnappings turn violent, and last month, a Briton was killed in a botched rescue attempt.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo has tried unsuccessfully to quell the violence, both through dialogue and attempted disarmament.

Oil and gas accounts for more than 90 per cent of Nigeria's total annual income. The West African nation has lost more than a quarter of its daily output of 2.1 million barrels to attacks by militant youths.