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Nigerian gunmen kidnap nine foreign oil workers amid upsurge in violence

Gunmen kidnapped nine foreign oil workers and a Nigerian colleague from a ship off the coast of Nigeria on Friday, police said, bringing the total number of foreign hostages in the country to 25.

The abductions come amid an upsurge in violence against international oil companies operating in the Niger Delta, an impoverished wetlands region in southern Nigeria which is home to Africa's biggest oil industry.

Suspected militants in two speed boats exchanged fire with security guards on the vessel during the kidnapping, which took place off the southern state of Bayelsa.

"Some armed men attacked an oil facility and abducted nine foreigners and one Nigerian," a spokesman for Bayelsa state police said.

Industry sources said the workers -- three Americans, four Britons, a South African, a Filipino and a Nigerian -- were seized from a pipe laying vessel contracted to Nigerian oil company Conoil.

The sources had earlier identified the owner of the vessel as Texas-based Transcoastal Corp, but a spokesman for that company said it was not involved.

US authorities were notifying the three families and were closely monitoring the situation, he said, refusing to identify the three hostages.

The raid came a day after gunmen kidnapped a Polish engineer near the oil city of Warri, also in the Niger Delta.

Abductions for ransom or to press political demands are frequent in the delta, where there is widespread resentment against an industry that has extracted billions of dollars in oil wealth but left most people living in poverty.

Oil production from Nigeria, the world's eighth biggest exporter, is down by about 700,000 barrels per day or almost a quarter because of an 18-month surge in violence.
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