Officials of Italy�s Agip oil company went into talks Wednesday with representatives of armed protesters who took dozens of oil workers hostage and closed a flowstation in Nigeria and Forty-eight workers, all Nigerian personnel who were on the flowstation in southern Nigeria when the protesters invaded it on Monday were still being held on Wednesday.
�We are already talking to them (the protesters) and we are hopeful that something useful will come out of the talks,� said the company official, who declined to be named.
When the protesters invaded the Tebidaba flowstation in Bayelsa State in the volatile Niger-Delta region, they forced workers to shut it down, thereby cutting oil output by 55,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The attack came only three days after the United States government warned its citizens not to fall victim of planned attacks on oil facilities in the Delta area after last week�s kidnap of two oil workers, an American and a Briton.
Two expatriate oil workers, a Briton and an American, kidnapped last week in Bayelsa State were released on Tuesday and handed over to their company, a government spokesman said.
The two men, who work for Norwegian oil services firm Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS), were abducted by an armed gang last Thursday from a vessel off the coast of Bayelsa State in the oil-rich Niger-Delta region.
The PGS provides seismic data for oil and gas companies.
Attacks on oil installations, kidnappings of foreigners and sometimes killings of Nigerian oil workers, are carried out by armed groups that claim to be seeking a larger share of the oil wealth and jobs for the local community.
Since January, separatists and armed groups seeking benefits from the oil wealth for the Delta�s 14-million strong ethnic Ijaw community have been blamed for a spate of violent attacks on multinational oil firms and their personnel.
Nigeria, Africa�s largest oil producer and world�s sixth oil producer, derives more than 95 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from oil.
Some 60 Nigerian security workers have been killed by suspected militants during attacks on oil facilities in the restive region this year.
Dozens of local and expatriate workers have been kidnapped and held for days or weeks before being released unharmed.