(SomaliNet) Six oil workers identified as three Americans, two Britons and a South African were on Friday kidnapped by gunmen from a pipe laying vessel off the coast of Nigeria Friday, oil industry sources said. Reports revealed that gun shots were fired during the abduction by suspected militants in two speed boats, which took place off the coast of the southern state of Bayelsa near the town of Sangana. The sources said the six oil workers were taken from a pipelaying vessel contracted to Nigerian oil company Conoil.
This incident came a day after gunmen kidnapped a Polish engineer near the oil city of Warri, which took the number of foreign workers being held by armed groups in the anarchic delta to 16.
Oil production from Nigeria, the worldÂ’s eighth biggest exporter, is down by about 700,000 barrels per day or almost a quarter because of an 18-month surge in violence. About 100 foreigners have been kidnapped this year and released unharmed after their employers paid ransoms.
| While not strictly WoT, the unrest in Nigeria has real potential to cause us and the industrialized world problems. |