Nigeria Oil Rig Hostages Gain Freedom

Posted on Sat, May. 03, 2003 GLENN MCKENZIE Associated Press

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria - Hostages left offshore oil rigs where striking Nigerian workers held them captive for weeks - signaling a peaceful end to the standoff Saturday.

Some essential staff would remain behind on the four oil-drilling platforms, but "everyone else, they are departing in phases," said Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for rig owner Transocean Inc., based in Houston.

The evacuation "is continuing and we are going to do it as quickly as we can," Cantwell said.

Many of the 170 Nigerian and 97 expatriate hostages - including 35 Britons, 17 Americans and two Canadians - traveled Saturday with their 100 captors on boats and helicopters to port cities in the oil-rich southern Niger Delta.

Nigerian oil workers took the hostages on installations 23 miles off Nigeria's southern coast as part of a wildcat strike launched on April 19 over grievances with Transocean's management.

Company officials and strikers' representatives negotiated the captives' release Friday, after which the first hostage was soon freed.

The strikers have demanded the reinstatement of fired workers and that they be transported to the rigs by helicopters, not boats.

Their principal concerns will be addressed at a later date, according to a communique issued after Friday's talks.

Sweaty and bedraggled, the released hostages told of threats, tedium and discomfort, although there were no immediate reports of injuries.

Some hostages had earlier expressed fears their captors may kill them or blow up the rigs if security forces tried to storm the facilities.

"It was tense at the start, but the last few days weren't bad," said Mark Richards, a Transocean employee from Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. "There was some intimidation," he said, without elaborating.

"This was not that bad. Sometimes it's worse," said another oil worker, Luis Peraza of Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, who had been on board Nigerian rigs during two previous strikes.

Two other helicopters carrying hostages were seen in Warri, another port town. Two ferry boats containing more than 40 expatriates and Nigerians landed at the port of Onne, near Port Harcourt.

A Nigerian labor leader who helped negotiate the hostages' freedom said he believed all captives were expected to leave the rigs on Saturday.

The captives were from several companies, including Transocean, Shell Oil Co., TotalFinaElf and U.S.-based Baker Hughes.

Sabotage and hostage-takings by community activists, labor groups and others demanding compensation for land use and alleged environmental damage are common in the southern delta, where nearly all of Nigeria's oil is drilled.

Despite the region's vast petroleum stores, most residents remain desperately poor. Nigeria is one of the world's largest oil exporters and the fifth-largest producer of U.S. oil imports.