Armed militants stormed a flow station belonging to Italian oil company Agip on Thursday, according to reports as Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell said it was moving 400 employees’ family members.
Details on the Agip attack were still unclear, but the BBC reported that the oil station in Bayelsa State was taken by armed youth overnight Wednesday. A militant group was still holding four Agip oil workers hostage who were taken two weeks ago.
Thursday saw another attack on station of the French-owned Total, in which three policemen were killed in an overnight raid. According to Total officials, that attack was not politically motivated.
There has been growing unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta, where militants calling for a greater say over the use of natural resources and protesting environmental destruction by oil companies have kidnapped dozens of expatriate workers, usually releasing them unharmed after a short period.
Shell Oil said it would move 400 of its employees’ family members from residential compounds in Nigeria after two car bombs were set off by militants in the region.
The bombs exploded in the southern city of Port Harcourt on Monday at residential compounds housing the families of Shell employees and at an oil facility owned by Agip.
No one was killed or injured in the attacks and one bomb was aborted because there were civilians around, said the militant group that carried out the attack.
“We are relocating dependants of our expatriate staff,” said Eurwen Thomas, a Shell press officer based in London. “Our staff will remain in situ and our operations are unaffected.”
She said the decision to relocate came after Monday’s explosion. She said the majority of the workers were British and Dutch, but gave no further details about the relocation plan.
Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo has tried unsuccessfully to quell the violence, both through dialogue and attempted disarmament.
Oil and gas accounts for more than 90 per cent of Nigeria’s total annual income. The West African nation has lost more than a quarter of its daily output of 2.1 million barrels to attacks by militant youths.