Nigerian Gunmen Attack Oil Supply Vessel, One Dead

The company did not give any details of the contractor who was killed.

Gunmen in southern Nigeria killed a contractor working for Canada's Addax Petroleum during an attempted robbery on an oil supply vessel on Tuesday, the second such attack on the company in as many days.

Addax, a second tier oil producer in Nigeria, said its production facilities were not targeted in the incident, in which a Nigerian navy seaman and a crew member were injured.

"We believe that violent criminal attacks of this nature are perpetrated opportunistically by lawless criminal elements," Addax Chief Executive Jean Claude Gandur said in a statement.

"Whilst they do not present a substantive threat to our operations, they nevertheless cause us great concern regarding the safety of both our, and our contractors', personnel," he said.

The company did not give any details of the contractor who was killed.

Strikes on oil facilities -- including the bombing of pipelines and kidnapping of foreign oil workers -- are frequent in the labyrinthine creeks of the Niger Delta, home to Africa's biggest oil industry.

Nigeria pumps around 2.1 million barrels of oil per day, most of it from the delta, making it the world's eighth biggest exporter, but it should be producing much more -- the insecurity has reduced output by around a fifth in recent years.

Militants who say they are fighting for greater local control of the region's resources usually claim responsibility for attacks on production facilities, but violent robberies and kidnappings by criminal gangs seeking ransom are also common.

The proceeds of a lucrative trade in stolen crude have flooded the delta with guns and when security is tightened around oil facilities, criminal gangs seek profit elsewhere.

Sagir Musa, spokesman for the military taskforce responsible for policing the eastern delta, said the attack had been carried out by unknown bandits who had been repelled by naval personnel.

Gunmen in speedboats stormed a security vessel contracted to Addax in the early hours of Monday morning, killing one navy seaman and injuring several others before being repelled by military reinforcements.

Gandur said he believed the timing of the second attack was "unfortunate and coincidental".

President Umaru Yar'Adua's year-old administration has said it plans to hold a summit with Niger Delta communities to try to address the root causes of the unrest but has also promised a crackdown on militant camps in the region.