Oil workers evacuated as hostage crisis ends

Helicopters on Friday night began evacuating nearly 300 oil workers whom striking colleagues had held hostage for 13 days on four oil rigs off the coast of Nigeria. The evacuation followed talks brokered by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the country's umbrella trade union federation, in the capital Abuja, at which all parties to the dispute reached an agreement to evacuate the rigs immediately and hold further negotiations to resolve outstanding issues. "It was agreed that the industrial action be suspended immediately and rigs be evacuated forthwith," said a joint communique signed by rig-owners, U.S-based Transocean Inc., representatives of the striking workers and leaders of the labour unions. Joseph Akinlaja, secretary-general of the National Union of Petroleum and Gas Workers Union of Nigeria (NUPENG), said union members on the rigs were contacted immediately to comply with the agreement. The first batch of workers to be brought off the rigs by helicopter landed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria's southeastern oil industry centre, by 1800 hours GMT, company officials said. Altogether 97 expatriates and 170 Nigerians had been held hostage by the strikers. Under the deal reached at the Abuja talks, leaders of the NLC and the country's two main oil industry unions will work with the management of Transocean to resolve all outstanding issues "in a mutually acceptable manner". The dispute arose after NUPENG members demanded that Nigerian employees be transported to and from offshore rigs by helicopters, like their expatriate colleagues, instead of by ship. It escalated after five union leaders were sacked. The Nigerian navy sent ships to the area to evacuate the rigs by force if necessary, but in the end they were not called upon to intervene.