Shell has begun downmanning facilities in Nigeria after a dramatic 24 hours of violence which saw a north-east businessman snatched from his home.
It is understood Mike Welford, who is originally from the Aberdeen area, was kidnapped from his home in Port Harcourt in the early hours of yesterday.
The 65-year-old is believed to have been alone when five gunmen stormed in and took him hostage.
His Nigerian wife, a former policewoman, phoned him when the kidnapping was taking place, only for the call to be answered by militants.
A source told the Press and Journal that Mr Welford left petrochemicals firm Indo Rama earlier this year to set up his own business.
Mr Welford is thought to still have family ties in the north-east, but has been living in Nigeria for a number of years.
No militant group has admitted responsibility for the kidnapping, which came as violence escalated elsewhere in the country with reports that militants had sabotaged a pipeline overnight in the southern oil region.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement that its fighters used high explosives to destroy the pipeline operated by Shell.
A spokesman for Shell, which has a 30% stake in operations there, said it was downmanning some facilities as a “precautionary measure”.
Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, of the Nigerian police, said gunmen also attacked a Chevron oil platform yesterday, but were fought off.
Chevron spokesman Deji Haastrup said personnel were being withdrawn but he could not say what caused the evacuation.
In recent days, violence has flared across Nigeria’s Niger Delta oil region, with a series of battles between militants and Nigerian troops.
Two men on board a boat, the HD Blue Ocean, which was hijacked last week, are known to be British.
On Saturday, the military taskforce charged with calming the region launched a deadly attack on a MEND base camp with landing craft, helicopters and planes.
The militants have since retaliated by sending raiding parties from their camps deep in the mangrove swamps to target military personnel and oil infrastructure.
At least nine militants and several members of the armed forces have been killed and there have been civilian casualties.
On Sunday, the militants said the latest clashes with the military meant the region had slipped into a state of war.
The militants say they have been campaigning for the last three years to force the federal government to send more oil industry revenue to their areas, which remain impoverished despite five decades of producing oil.
Their attacks on oil infrastructure have trimmed nearly a quarter of Nigeria’s daily production, helping send oil prices to all-time highs in international markets.
A full-blown civil war, however, would be a nightmare scenario for the oil industry, since large-scale fighting could ruin the country’s network of wells, pipelines and export terminals.