Kidnapped oil workers freed in Nigeria

Lagos: Nigerian separatist militants released four kidnapped foreign oil workers on Monday but immediately renewed a threat to destroy oilrigs and pipelines and halt the country's key crude exports.

The hostages, an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran, were handed over to the Bayelsa State government before dawn.

"They're with the governor right now. They're very okay," he said.

Diplomats and the oil worker's employer confirmed that the men had been released, 19 days after they were seized, and said that they would get medical checks before being flown home to their families.

The news will come as a relief to those working in Africa's largest oil industry, which is reeling from a three-week series of violent attacks that has left 22 police and soldiers dead and cut exports by more than eight per cent.

But the militants warned that their release of the hostages for "humanitarian reasons" did not mark an end to the struggle by Niger Delta's 14 million ethnic Ijaws for control over the region's oil and gas resources.

"This release does not signify a ceasefire or softening of our position to destroy the oil export capability of the Nigerian government," said the group, in a statement from an email account used by the hostage takers.

"We repeat our warning to expatriates in the oil industry as they may not be as fortunate as these four individuals. Leave our land while you can," it said.

"We will shortly carry out greatly significant attacks aimed at ensuring our February target of a 30-percent reduction in Nigeria's export capacity."

On January 11, a heavily armed group riding speed boats boarded the Liberty Service -- an oil industry supply vessel working under contract for the energy giant Shell -- and captured four crew members.

Three of the hostages were employees of Tidewater, a Louisiana-based oil services firm: the boat's 61-year-old US skipper, Patrick Landry, and engineers Harry Ebanks, 54, from Honduras and Milko Yordanor Nitchev, 56, from Bulgaria.

The kidnapped Briton was Nigel Watson-Clark, a former paratrooper employed by the British company Ecodrill as a security expert.

"All of the workers will undergo medical examinations before repatriation to their homes and families," said a statement from Tidewater.

The kidnappers had demanded that the Nigerian government release two prominent Ijaw leaders from jail and that Shell pay 1.5 billion dollars (1.2 billion euros) in compensation to villages polluted by oil spills.

Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil exporter, producing 2.6 million barrels of crude per day, and the crisis in the Niger Delta has combined with fears of renewed instability in the Middle East to push prices towards historic highs.