Militants take away two hostages as navy storms

The ChevronTexaco oil company has confirmed that two oil workers are still being held by ethnic Ijaw militants after a naval raid on Thursday ended the militants' occupation of two offshore platforms belonging to the company. The occupation was carried out by a group calling itself Bini-Oru Security from the Foropa community in the southern oil region, Bayelsa state. Navy spokesman Shinebi Hungiapuko told reporters that militants arrested during the raid had been flown to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, where they would be charged after the conclusion of investigations. But other militants fled, taking their hostages with them. "The remaining two contract employees are believed to be still in the custody of the group that invaded the platforms and being held at unknown locations onshore Bayelsa State," Sola Omole, ChevronTexaco spokesman, said in a statement issued on Friday. Chuck Taylor, who heads Texaco Overseas Petroleum Company Unlimited of Nigeria (TOPCON), the ChevronTexaco subsidiary in direct charge of the affected Middleton and Pennington platforms, said the company has not pressed yet to obtain details of how the hostages were freed. “Our focus now is on trying to secure the release of the two missing workers - we continue to be gravely concerned for their safety,” said Taylor. Following the attack on platforms and the consequent raid by the navy, ChevronTexaco has shut down two other oil platforms in the area - Funiwa and North Apoi - and evacuated workers to safety. Production of 23,000 barrels per day of crude oil has also been crippled, the company said. Though the company was silent on the demands of the militants, local newspaper reports said the youths were asking the company to pay 260 million naira (US$1.9 million) for security duties they claim to have performed for the oil transnational on the two platforms. Disruption of oil operations through hostage-taking, seizure of oil facilties and violence between rival ethnic communities is rife in Nigeria's oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta. Communities in the region accuse the government and oil transnationals of depriving them of any benefits from the decades of oil production in the region - the mainstay of the economy of Africa's most populous country of over 120 million people. Last week another group of armed militants briefly seized two boats belonging to ChevronTexaco and detained 12 oil workers on the Escravos River. The boats were part of a convoy taking supplies from Warri to ChevronTexaco's Escravos main oil export terminal.