Nigerian gunmen attacked an Agip oil export terminal in the Niger Delta early on Thursday and kidnapped three expatriate workers, the commander of the armed forces in the region told Reuters.
Alfred Ilogho said the gunmen tried to storm Agip’s Brass terminal, which exports about 200,000 barrels per day, at 5.00 a.m. (0400 GMT) but were repelled after an exchange of fire with soldiers guarding the facility in remote Bayelsa state.
“They did not succeed in entering the terminal but instead they by-passed it and went to a residential facility where they kidnapped three expatriates,” Ilogho said.
He did not know the nationalities of the hostages or if operations at the Brass terminal were affected.
An Agip spokesman in Lagos had no information about the attack, while no one at Agip’s parent company Eni in Milan was immediately available for comment.
Kidnappings for ransom are common in the Niger Delta. Hostages are usually released unharmed after money changes hands, although this year one British hostage and one Nigerian were killed during botched attempts by troops to release them.
The world’s eighth biggest exporter of crude has been losing more than 500,000 bpd, or about a fifth of its output capacity, since February when militants demanding greater local control of oil wealth staged a series of raids on the industry.
Thursday’s attack comes before Nigeria is due to host a meeting of OPEC ministers on December 14
The Niger Delta, which accounts for all of Nigeria’s oil output, has been plagued by kidnappings, attacks on oil facilities, massive theft and smuggling of crude and politically motivated violence for years.
Many residents of the vast, impoverished wetlands resent the oil industry which has yielded huge revenues for corrupt governments and for foreign oil firms while bringing them few benefits.
As a result, militancy and crime flourish in the impenetrable region of mangrove-lined creeks and swamps where the security forces find it hard to match the firepower and local knowledge of their opponents.
Violence in the delta has been particularly bad this year as Nigeria prepares for elections next April.
On Wednesday night, two men on a motorcycle threw dynamite at the campaign headquarters of Bayelsa’s Governor Goodluck Jonathan in the state capital Yenagoa, police commissioner Hafiz Ringim told Reuters.
No one was hurt in the blast, which shattered the windows of several surrounding buildings and left a crater in the road. It was the second such attack in Yenagoa in less than two weeks after the local headquarters of the ruling People’s Democratic Party were also bombed.