Eric Watkins
Middle East Correspondent
NICOSIA, Apr. 26 -- Two US workers, contracted with ChevronTexaco Corp.'s Nigerian subsidiary, and five other people were killed Apr. 23 when the boat they were using to visit oil fields in the Niger Delta was attacked by local militants.
In a statement issued Sunday, Chevron Nigeria Ltd. (CNL) said, "Two of the dead are United States citizens, working for International Business Systems Inc., a contractor company to CNL."
CNL added, "The others are Nigerians, including the boat captain and a crew member, both employees of Wilbros Nigeria Ltd., and three Naval security personnel."
Citing preliminary information, CNL said heavily armed militants, who had attempted to dispossess the Naval security personnel of their weapons, carried out the attack.
The CNL work crew had been assessing oil and gas facilities in Dibi and Olero Creek fields as part of preparations to return to these swamp locations that were vacated in March 2003, at the height of interethnic violence in the Niger Delta.
CNL spokesman Wole Agunbiade told Nigeria's Vanguard newspaper that the attack was a setback to plans by the company to resume production in the area.
"We have stopped production from the area before. We were trying to get back when this incident happened," Agunbiade said.
Increasing violence
This latest incident comes amid increasing violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta on the southern coast of Nigeria.
On April 20, Nigerian navy troopers shot and killed five militants, identified as members of the restive Ijaw ethnic group, who attempted to seize control of an Italian-owned oil pumping station in the troubled Niger Delta region.
Armed with pump action shotguns, the militants attempted to storm the Gebidaba flow station, an oil facility owned by Nigeria Agip Oil Co., a division of ENI SPA, but were fought off by a naval security unit.
Several more militants were killed and three Nigerian soldiers were wounded Apr. 18 in a gun battle in the swampland oil fields near Warri.
The spokesman said the clashes broke out when the militants ran into a patrol team of navy soldiers and police at the Jones Creek flow station, a major oil pumping facility owned by Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group.
In early April, another two militants were shot dead as they tried to hijack a group of oil barges belonging to Shell.
Many of Shell's facilities in the swamplands west of Warri were abandoned in March 2003 when fighting erupted between the rival Ijaw and Itsekiri communities and with military units. Shell evacuated four oil facilities, oil pipeline pumping stations at Ogbotobo, Opukushi, Tumo and Benisede, bringing to 14 the number of closed Shell facilities.
Along with Shell, CNL suspended its oil production in the Niger Delta region in March 2003, declaring force majeure on its exports following the violent ethnic clashes.
