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Strikers 'will blow up rig'
30/04/2003 10:40 - (SA)
Lagos - Union officials were hoping on Wednesday to negotiate with Nigerian members who have taken nearly 100 foreign oil workers hostage on offshore rigs and reportedly threatened to kill them.
A wildcat strike by Nigerian oil workers against the US drilling firm Transocean has turned into a tense standoff, with strikers holding international staff and managers captive on four deepwater rigs.
Satellite phone calls and e-mails from hostages to family members suggested the strikers will react violently if Transocean tries to enforce a court injunction to vacate the rigs.
"They flared up and are extremely angry at the thought that the military or armed people are going to come and forcibly remove them from the rig," one Scottish worker told his wife, according to the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee. The group represents some of the foreign captives.
"They threatened violence - in particular to blow up the rig and kill everybody on board," said the worker.
Another worker wrote in an e-mail: "Make no mistake of the danger we're in. If they have lost everything, they will make sure we lose everything. And that means our lives," said the committee's general secretary, Jake Molloy. He spoke at a media briefing on Tuesday in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Transocean spokesperson Guy Cantwell downplayed the threats and described the situation as relatively calm.
"Everyone on the rigs is safe, no one is physically injured, and we are working to make sure it stays that way," Cantwell told the Chronicle newspaper in Houston, Texas, where the company has its headquarters.
Among the 97 foreign workers being held are 35 Britons and 17 Americans, said the British Foreign Office.
"Negotiations are continuing to try to resolve the dispute and our colleagues at the British High Commission are closely monitoring the situation," a spokesperson said.
The workers are striking to protest the sacking of five colleagues for alleged theft.
Officials from the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and National
Gas Workers have said they oppose the strike and said they planned to negotiate with their members on Wednesday to try to end the dispute.
The strikers have prevented helicopters from evacuating the rigs for more than a week by blocking landing pads with containers, according to union and company officials.
Transocean, the world's biggest offshore drilling contractor, first made an official statement about the strike on April 22 but did not acknowledge that the foreign workers were being forcibly held until the weekend, when family members relayed their telephone conversations.
Nigeria is the world's eighth-biggest oil producer but the industry has been plagued with unrest in recent years, partly because of perception that Nigerians see little economic benefit from the resource. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA
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