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British worker abducted off Nigeria
Oil worker is abducted from a rig off the coast of the lawless Niger Delta.
Last Modified: 31 Mar 2007 13:20 GMT
Armed groups target foreign oil workers for ransom or to press for political demands [EPA]

A British oil worker has been kidnapped from an offshore drilling rig in Nigeria, officials and industry sources said.
 
"We can confirm there was an incident in the early hours of this morning in which a British national was taken hostage," a spokeswoman for Britain's foreign office in London said.
The rig is situated off the coast of the lawless Niger Delta, Nigeria's oil heartland where kidnappings of foreign workers for ransom or to press political demands are common.
 
The British spokeswoman said the kidnapped person was an oil worker but said his name was not being released.

Six Britons, one American and a Canadian were kidnapped from Bulford Dolphin on June 2 last year in a night raid by gunmen in speedboats. They were released two days later.

   

The Bulford Dolphin rig is owned by the Norwegian oilfield services group Fred Olsen Energy and leased to Nigerian firm Peak Petroleum, which operates it in partnership with Equator Exploration.

 

The Niger Delta, which accounts for all of Nigeria's approximately 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in crude exports, has been hit by a wave of abductions and attacks on oil facilities since late 2005.

 

Analysts say the violence in the delta is rooted in poverty and a collapse in basic public services due to endemic corruption in government.
Source:
Agencies
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