Gunmen suspected to be pirates have attacked a ship operated by a French oil and gas services company off the coast of Nigeria, kidnapping six Russian sailors and an Estonian in the assault, the firm said yesterday.
Paris-based Bourbon SA offered only a tersely worded statement on its website about the attack which occurred on Monday in the Niger Delta, where the company works closely with oil companies like French firm Total SA. Gunmen apparently attacked the Bourbon Liberty 249, an anchor handling vessel, and seized the sailors before escaping, the company said.
Gunmen suspected to be pirates have attacked a ship operated by a French oil and gas services company off the coast of Nigeria, kidnapping six Russian sailors and an Estonian in the assault, the firm said yesterday.
Paris-based Bourbon SA offered only a tersely worded statement on its website about the attack which occurred on Monday in the Niger Delta, where the company works closely with oil companies like French firm Total SA. Gunmen apparently attacked the Bourbon Liberty 249, an anchor handling vessel, and seized the sailors before escaping, the company said.
Another nine sailors onboard the vessel sailed safely away to the company's port in Onne in Rivers state, the company said.
"The emergency unit set up immediately by Bourbon has been set up to aim at their rapid liberation under the safest security conditions," the company said in its statement. A company spokesman reached in Paris declined to elaborate on the company's statement and did not say where the kidnapping actually took place.
Bourbon SA said yesterday that it is in contact with the crewmembers’ families, supporting them, and keeping them regularly informed.
Initial reports of the attack say that a group of armed pirates in a speed boat and supported by a fishing trawler which was being used as a mothership boarded the Bourbon Liberty 249 initially.
Bourbon SA operates support vessels for offshore oil rigs and provides repair, inspection and maintenance services for undersea oil fields, and has a smaller unit that ships commodities like coal, grain and timber worldwide. The company had revenues of 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) last year.
The company has been targeted by kidnappers in Nigeria before. In September 2010, attackers armed with Kalashnikov rifles clashed with Nigerian navy forces in a failed bid to take over an offshore oil platform, then kidnapped three French employees of Bourbon. The workers were later released.
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