Nigeria: Italian Firm Acknowledged Oil Line Attack

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12003281

Italian oil firm Eni SpA says a pipeline carrying some of its crude out of Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta has erupted after an "act of sabotage."

The oil firm says the pipeline attack, which occurred either Thursday night or Friday morning, has cut production by 4,000 barrels of oil a day. Of those barrels, Eni says 800 each day are their share. It could not be immediately confirmed whose supplies were also affected.

Eni says it has not declared any shipment warnings because of the "minor amount of production involved."

Militants in the Niger Delta began a campaign of kidnapping and pipeline bombings in 2006, upset over pollution and the region's endemic poverty despite 50 years of oil production.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

EKET, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian policeman says an Indian expatriate who leads an Exxon Mobil-supported school in the oil-rich Niger Delta has been released by her kidnappers.

Akwa Ibom state police commissioner Walter Rugbere says officers recovered Lakshmi Tombush on Thursday night from a house in Eket, the same city where the U.S. oil company has its base of operations. Rugbere said Friday that Tombush was in good health.

Rugbere says police also found the kidnapped wife of a former military governor at the same time. The commissioner says no arrests have been made.

The number of violent kidnappings targeting middle-class Nigerians in the region has skyrocketed this year.