Gunmen seize company managers in Niger delta-police

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, June 1 (Reuters) Gunmen used dynamite and heavy machine guns to kidnap at least three senior managers of Indonesian chemical company Indorama in Nigeria's southern oil-producing Niger Delta, police said today.

The pre-dawn raid on their residential estate added to a tally of 20 foreign workers being held by various armed groups in the delta, home to Africa's largest oil industry.

''Three top managers of Indorama were taken from the estate where they live. There was very serious shooting with heavy machine guns and dynamite,'' said Felix Ogbaudu, police commissioner of Rivers state where the raid took place.

It was not clear who was behind the latest abductions.

Kidnappings for ransom are frequent in the Niger Delta.

Separately, the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which failed to free six foreign hostages on May 30 as it had promised, said it still intended to release the men and the delay was due to logistical problems.

''We requested a chopper which was not provided. We are exploring other options,'' the MEND said in an e-mail to Reuters.

MEND fighters seized the four Italians, one American and one Croat from an offshore oil platform operated by US major Chevron on May 1 to embarrass outgoing president Olusegun Obasanjo before he stepped down on May 29.

Umaru Yar'Adua, who was sworn in as the new president, has pledged to tackle the crisis in the Niger Delta.

The government has announced Yar'Adua would host a summit on the delta with politicians and other representatives from the region on Monday.

Obasanjo held a series of similar summits last year which failed to stop an upsurge of violence that has killed dozens of people and forced the closure of more than a quarter of Nigeria's oil production capacity.

The supply disruptions in the world's eighth-biggest oil exporter have pushed up prices on international markets. The shortfall in Nigerian oil output currently stands at over 900,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Protesters demanding contracts and money from Royal Dutch Shell were occupying a pipeline hub at Bomu, in the Ogoni area of Rivers state, today morning.

The occupation, which has halted 150,000 bpd, started on Tuesday. Shell stopped producing oil in Ogoni 14 years ago because of popular protests over neglect and pollution, but the area is criss-crossed by pipelines.

Violence in the Niger Delta stems from a complex set of factors including poverty, lack of basic services, corruption among government officials and security forces, resentment towards foreign oil companies and political thuggery.

REUTERS SBC DS1410