Gunmen raided a facility operated by Addax Petroleum in southern Nigeria on Tuesday and took one Nigerian worker hostage, sources said.
“The attack happened on Tuesday and one Nigerian was taken hostage”, Joseph Ushigiale, spokesperson for the southern state of Cross River told reporters.
He said the facility was in neighbouring Akwa Ibom State and that Addax staff had told him they suspected a local community group of carrying out the attack.
An official statement by Addax Petroleum in Lagos confirmed the incident.
“We had an incident on one of out platforms involving a production operator. Our team is in the field investigating it. No production losses were recorded as a result of the incident,” said the statement.
It did not give further details.
A company official, who declined to be named, confirmed that the incident happened on the Addax-operated platform located in Issiat, near Oron city, in Akwa Ibom.
An industry source had earlier said the attack took place in Cross River and that several Nigerians had been seized.
Addax Petroleum is the upstream arm of the Addax and Oryx petroleum and mining group. – Sapa-AFP