DATE=8/3/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=NIGERIA HOSTAGES (L)
NUMBER=2-265118
BYLINE=PURNELL MURDOCK
DATELINE=ABIDJAN
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Armed militants holding 165 oil workers
hostage in southeastern Nigeria have told oil company
officials they will release their captives later today
(Thursday). V-O-A's Purnell Murdock reports from our
West Africa Bureau.
TEXT: A spokesman for the Royal Dutch Shell oil
company says the militants agreed late Wednesday to
release the hostages and leave the two oil rigs they
seized in Baylesa state earlier this week.
In return, the spokesman says Shell will meet with
militant leaders later this month to discuss their
grievances against the company and its sub-
contractors.
Shell officials say the militants want employment for
local residents and compensation for oil taken from
the Niger River delta region.
Violent protests by impoverished local communities
demanding more access to oil wealth have hampered oil
production in recent years.
The most common attacks against the oil companies have
been vandalism along oil pipelines. Hundreds of
people died last month in Delta state in fires ignited
accidentally by local villagers who were siphoning
gasoline from damaged pipelines.
Some analysts say villagers are driven by poverty and
anger over what they see as government and oil
industry complicity in spoiling the local environment.
Shell is the largest of the multi-national oil
companies operating in Nigeria. Its production
accounts for nearly one-half of the nation's daily
output of just over two-million barrels a day.
(SIGNED)
NEB/WPM/JWH/KBK
03-Aug-2000 13:24 PM EDT (03-Aug-2000 1724 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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