Port Harcourt (Nigeria), May 04: Hostages left offshore oil rigs where striking Nigerian workers held them captive for weeks - signaling a peaceful end to the standoff. A chartered helicopter with nine workers - including an unspecified number of expatriates - flew from a rig to the city of Port Harcourt early today morning, a pilot told a news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was unclear if any strikers were on the chopper. Some essential staff would remain behind on the four oil-drilling platforms, but "everyone else, they are departing in phases," said Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for Rig Owner Transocean Inc, based in Houston. The evacuation "is continuing and we are going to do it as quickly as we can," Cantwell said. Many of the 170 Nigerian and 97 expatriate hostages - including 35 Britons, 17 Americans and two Canadians - travelled yesterday with their 100 captors on boats and helicopters to port cities in the oil-rich southern Niger delta.
Nigerian oil workers took the hostages on installations 40 kilometres off Nigeria's southern coast as part of a wildcat strike launched on april 19 over grievances with Transocean's management.
Company officials and strikers' representatives negotiated the captives' release Friday, after which the first hostage was soon freed.
The strikers have demanded the reinstatement of fired workers and that they be transported to the rigs by helicopters, not boats. Bureau Report