June 03, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 17, 1428

LAGOS, June 2: Gunmen disguised as riot police abducted four foreign workers from the residential compound of oil services giant Schlumberger in Nigeria’s oil city Port Harcourt, authorities said on Saturday.

In nearby Bayelsa state, a group at the vanguard of delta militancy freed six foreigners – four Italians, one American and a Croatian – it seized on May 1, from a facility operated by US oil giant Chevron.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) also said it would halt attacks for one month to pave the way for talks with the new Nigerian government.

Kidnapping has become an almost daily occurrence in the anarchic Niger Delta, home to Africa’s largest oil industry, and about 24 foreigners are still being held by various armed groups in the vast wetlands region.

“Some expats were kidnapped from the club of Schlumberger Anadrill in a residential area last night,” said Rivers state police commissioner Felix Ogbaudu. The abductors were dressed as riot police, he said.

Schlumberger Anadrill is a private subsidiary of US-listed Schlumberger, the world’s largest oil services company.

The company said the four hostages were citizens of Britain, France, the Netherlands and Pakistan. “We are working with the relevant agencies to resolve the situation as quickly as possible,” Schlumberger said in a statement.

Attacks on oil facilities and kidnappings have forced thousands of foreign workers to flee and reduced oil output from the world’s eighth-largest exporter by almost a million barrels a day, one third of Nigeria’s capacity.

—Reuters