One oil worker killed in Nigerian rescue mission

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Nov 22 (Reuters) One hostage was killed and two wounded today when Nigerian troops launched a rescue attempt to free seven foreign oil workers abducted from an offshore oilfield, military and industry sources said.

The remaining four hostages, seized from an Italian oil facility off the coast, were freed unharmed by the Nigerian military, who killed two militants in the raid.

''Government security forces engaged militants from this morning's hostage taking. One expat is dead and two were injured. Four were unharmed,'' one military source said.

Italy's foreign ministry said the dead hostage was British.

It was the first time an expatriate oil worker has been killed after being taken hostage in Nigeria, security sources said.

Earlier today, spokesman for ENI , the Italian company operating the facility, said two Finns, a Briton, an Italian, a Filipino, a Pole and a Romanian had been taken by gunmen in speed boats.

The nationalities of the wounded hostages were not immediately known.

Eni closed down its 50,000 barrels-a-day Okono/Okpoho oilfield as a result of the attack, an industry source said.

The facility, located 34 miles (55 km) off the coast of the Niger Delta, is a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel, a stationary tanker with crude oil and gas processing facilities built on top and a loading buoy attached.

An industry source said the attack was ''community-related'', referring to disputes between oil companies and nearby villages about employment, infrastructure and other benefits.

These disputes are common in the impoverished Niger Delta, and hostages are normally released unharmed after talks involving the local government.

In this case, the kidnappers with the hostages in their boats ran into a military patrol by chance, and a firefight broke out, security sources said.

President Obasanjo in August ordered the military to put a stop to a growing wave of hostage-taking in the Niger Delta, telling troops to meet ''force for force''.

OFFSHORE Kidnapping is just one expression of a deteriorating situation in the vast wetlands region of southern Nigeria, which is home to all of the OPEC nation's petroleum resources.

Africa's top oil producer has already cut output by a fifth since February, when militants fighting for regional control of the delta's oil wealth staged a series of attacks on pipelines, platforms and export terminals.

Militancy is fuelled by poverty in villages that have seen few benefits from decades of oil extraction that has yielded huge revenues for the faraway federal government and oil firms.

But the violence has taken on a life of its own, with theft of crude oil, extortion and communal flare-ups also commonplace.

Dozens of mostly foreign oil workers have been seized this year as ransom-seekers have taken advantage of instability caused by growing militancy.

Almost all have been released unharmed after payments, although in August one Nigerian oil worker was killed by troops trying to free him.

As the oil industry has moved further offshore in search of new reserves, so too have heavily armed militias attached to coastal communities.

Disruption to oil exports from Nigeria helped drive world prices to record highs earlier this year, and analysts expect the situation to get worse as elections approach in April.

Reuters SBA VP0300