By CHIP CUMMINS
June 3, 2006; Page A5
Unidentified gunmen kidnapped eight foreign workers from an oil platform about 40 miles off Nigeria’s coast, raising fresh security challenges for the handful of international oil companies working in the region.
Pipeline sabotage, smuggling and militant attacks against oil installations have become commonplace onshore and in the swamps of the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta. But many oil-company executives have said they believe their installations offshore — miles from the restive coast — were more insulated from attack.
Foreign oil companies have poured billions of dollars into facilities along Nigeria’s coast and elsewhere along the West African coast in the Gulf of Guinea. Recent offshore production has helped Nigeria lift total output capacity to some 2.5 million barrels a day, making it one of the world’s biggest producers. But U.S. military officials have expressed concern that offshore platforms in the region are becoming increasingly vulnerable to piracy or terrorist attack.
Earlier this year, a militant group calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta attacked a Royal Dutch Shell PLC field about nine miles offshore, kidnapping four foreign workers. The workers were eventually released unharmed, but Shell shut down production at the field.
The attacks early Friday morning move the potential danger zone for oil companies and their workers considerably farther out to sea. Nigerian and other West African navies have proved ineffective in combating Gulf of Guinea piracy and smuggling, and the U.S. Navy has stepped up its presence in the region.
The kidnapped workers, six Britons, one American and one Canadian, were aboard the drilling rig Bulford Dolphin when it was attacked, according to a statement by the rig’s operator, Norway’s Fred. Olsen Energy ASA.
The company has made contact with the abducted workers, it said. The kidnappers, meanwhile, have been in touch with local representatives of a Nigerian partner in the drilling venture about negotiating the hostages’ release, said Sheena Wallace, a spokeswoman for Fred. Olsen subsidiary Dolphin Drilling Ltd.
Dolphin Drilling operates the rig for Nigerian oil company Peak Petroleum. Ms. Wallace said the kidnappers attacked the platform, which had 84 people aboard, early Friday morning. She said drilling had temporarily been suspended.
Write to Chip Cummins at [email protected]
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
