LAGOS (Reuters) - Four foreign oil workers held hostage by Nigerian militants were released on Monday and were well, a government spokesman said.
The hostages -- an American, Briton, Bulgarian and Honduran -- were abducted from an offshore oilfield in the Niger Delta operated by Royal Dutch Shell on January 11.
"They have all been released. They are all alive and well," said the spokesman for Nigeria's southern state of Bayelsa.
The militants, who have crippled a 10th of Nigeria's oil production in six weeks of violence, have demanded more local control over the delta's oil wealth, compensation for pollution to villages and the release of two ethnic Ijaw leaders.
They have staged several attacks on oil installations in the world's eighth largest oil exporter.
A militant Ijaw group with apparent links to the kidnappers had sent an email on Sunday agreeing to the hostages' release as a goodwill gesture to the international community.
On Sunday, police said about 20 armed men stormed the headquarters of a South Korean oil services company in the delta and stole more than $300,000 in the latest attack on foreign firms. There were no casualties.
The attack occurred only five days after nine men were killed during a suspected armed robbery at the delta headquarters of Italian oil company Agip, a unit of ENI.
The militants' campaign of violence has forced Shell to withdraw 500 employees and cut its output by 221,000 barrels a day.
Oil unions have threatened to withdraw from the delta, which pumps almost all of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels a day of oil, if the security situation deteriorates further.
With oil markets already nervous over diplomatic tensions between the West and Iran, the unrest in Nigeria's oil heartland has contributed to a rise in prices to four-month highs of more than $67 a barrel.
Dozens of people have been killed in the militants' attacks on two major oil export pipelines and two oil production platforms since December 20.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has played down any effect on investment in Africa's largest oil producer, but analysts fear the unrest may deter foreign workers from coming to Nigeria and hamper new projects, including the licensing of new fields.
Taken from
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/news...A-HOSTAGES.xml
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