Four foreign oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria

Four foreign oil workers have been kidnapped from an offshore oilfield in Nigeria operated by Royal Dutch Shell.

Four foreign oil workers have been kidnapped from an offshore oilfield in Nigeria operated by Royal Dutch Shell.

The hostages - an American, Briton, Honduran and Bulgarian - were working on a ship servicing the EAoilfield, a few miles off the coast of the southern Niger Delta, when they were seized yesterday.

"A support vessel was invaded by armed men and four persons were abducted," a Shell spokesman said. He declined to say whether output from the 120,000-barrels-per-day field had been curtailed.

An industry source said the process of shutting down the field had begun.

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Shell has been in a long-standing dispute with some militant groups based in villages close to the EA field and has experienced attacks there in the past.