Auja - Gunmen have invaded an oil facility operated by Shell in the Nun River area of Nigeria's Bayelsa state and are holding several soldiers and oil workers hostage, security and industry sources said on Friday.
It was the second attack against the oil industry in Bayelsa in eight days, after militants tried to destroy a major oil export terminal and kidnapped four foreign oil workers on December 7.
"Gunmen attacked a Shell logistics base and currently hold both naval and other personnel," a security source said.
A Shell source said the facility was an oilfield control station at Nun River and that the attackers had occupied it.
"This is a community problem. The community says Shell owes it 120-million naira (about R6,5-million)," a military source said.
Conflicts between communities and oil companies are common in Nigeria, the world's eighth largest oil exporter, and are normally resolved after a few days through negotiations involving the government.
Invasions are just one of a variety of security issues facing Western oil companies in the Niger Delta, where most people live in poverty despite the huge oil wealth being pumped from their ancestral land.
Nigerian oil production is already down by about a fifth because of attacks by militants in another part of the delta in February.