WARRI, Nigeria (AP) — Royal Dutch Shell is cutting back on oil production in Nigeria after a wave of attacks by militants across Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta. Three Americans were among nine foreign oil workers kidnapped.
Royal Dutch Shell says it is shutting down a facility that moves 400-thousand barrels of oil a day. That's 16 percent of the West African nation's output.
The foreigners were working on a barge belonging to a Houston-based oil services firm (Willbros) that was laying pipeline for Shell.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta says the attacks are a response to military helicopter assaults this week on ethnic minority communities in the region. The militants threatened more attacks would follow on “a grander scale.”