June 19 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it shut down the Bonga oil field in Nigeria because of a militant attack, the first time the deepwater facility 120 kilometers (75 miles) offshore has come under assault.
``There has been an armed attack on the Bonga field production unit,'' Shell spokesman Rainer Winzenried said in an interview from The Hague. Bonga crude shipments were scheduled to average 190,000 barrels a day in June, based on loading schedules. Attacks by militants previously focused on onshore and shallow fields in the creeks of the Niger river delta.
``It's certainly of a different tactical order,'' Antony Goldman, an independent U.K.-based analyst specializing in Nigeria, said by telephone from London. Goldman said he was surprised the militants had the ``hardware'' to carry out such an attack.
Nigerian Navy spokesman Henry Babalola said three people were kidnapped from a private security vessel during the Bonga attack. Gunmen in three speedboats also attacked a vessel near Pennington and abducted the ship's captain, a U.S. national, Babalola said by phone.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta claimed responsibility for the Bonga attack and urged oil companies to evacuate foreign staff from Nigeria.
The group released the ship's captain, a U.S. national, at 4:45 p.m. local time, MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo said in an e- mailed statement.
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