US photographer arrested at Nigerian oil facility

LAGOS, June 18 (Reuters) The Nigerian navy has detained an American journalist for taking photographs of an oil facility operated by the local unit of Italy's Agip, a rights group today said.

Ed Kashi of the National Geographic was photographing gas flare at the Obama flow station in Bayelsa state when he was arrested on Friday along with his Nigerian fixer, Dimieari Von Kemedi of Our Niger Delta said.

''They said he did not obtain permission to take pictures of the facility and that the area is volatile and he could have been kidnapped,'' Kemedi told Reuters.

''We are worried that the navy is not even acknowledging that they are in detention. They say every day that they will release them but they still haven't,'' he added.

Kemedi said the navy told him that the detainees would be taken to the navy regional headquarters in the oil city of Port Harcourt later today for further questioning.

A navy spokesman said he was not aware of the arrest.

Kidnapping of foreign oil workers is common in the Niger Delta, which pumps nearly all of Nigeria's 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.

But militants who have waged a 6-month campaign of violence against the energy industry in the Niger Delta have not abducted foreign reporters in the past, despite their warning to foreigners to stay away from the impoverished region.

The campaign of bloody attacks on oil facilities and kidnappings has cut a quarter of Nigerian oil output since February.

Militancy in the vast wetlands region is fuelled by poverty, lawlessness, corruption and struggles for control of a lucrative oil theft business.

REUTERS SBA RK1745