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Nigerian hostage-takers release two of eight oil workers

Two of eight Western oil workers abducted by armed militants off a drilling platform in southern Nigeria were freed early yesterday, but the six others are still being held, the president's office said.

"Only two have been released so far according to the negotiation team," presidential spokesman Remi Oyo said.

Nigerian police said earlier that all eight hostages had been freed.

"Two Britons have been released," said Ekiyor Welson, the spokesman for the state of Bayelsa where the attack took place.

He said the remaining hostages -- an American, a Canadian and four other Britons -- would also be released yesterday.

Earlier yesterday, federal police spokesman Haz Iwendi said that all the hostages had been released after the resolution of a dispute between the oil companies employing the hostages and villagers from the Niger Delta zone where they operate.

He later said that "the hostages were held in different places. It appears that the first two were freed at 2am."

The oil workers were kidnapped early on Friday by several dozen heavily armed men from an offshore drilling platform in the Niger Delta.

The drilling rig is located on oil field OML-122, situated between 25km and 60km off the Nigerian coast and operated as a Nigerian joint venture with Equator Exploration Nigeria and Peak Petroleum Industries Nigeria.

Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and the world's sixth-biggest exporter with an average of 2.6 million barrels a day, most of which is derived from the Niger Delta area.

The oil-rich region has since the start of the year been a theater of violence against foreign oil companies and their employees, launched by armed separatists and local communities demanding a larger share in oil revenues and compensation for the destruction of their ecosystem by oil exploration.

The militants have intensified their campaign in recent months, taking foreign oil workers hostage, attacking military bases and oil installations and thereby reducing the nation's oil production by 20 percent.
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