Twin attacks on Royal Dutch Shell oil facilities in Nigeria cut output from the world's eighth largest exporter by 10 percent, authorities said on Thursday, according to Reuters. In the first attack on Wednesday, unidentified armed men kidnapped four foreign oil workers -- an American, a Briton, a Honduran and a Bulgarian -- from the offshore E.A. oilfield, forcing the company to shut the 120,000 barrel-a-day field. In the second, an explosion on a major crude oil pipeline cut exports from the Forcados area by 100,000 barrels a day. The attacks come three weeks after militants blew up a big Shell-run export pipeline in December, and raised questions about the motivations behind the attacks in Africa's largest oil producer. "We are not able to say if they are coordinated," a senior Shell spokesman said.
