Shell pulls families from Nigeria after car bomb

LAGOS (Reuters) - The largest oil operator in Nigeria, Royal Dutch Shell, evacuated expatriate staff dependants from the Niger Delta on Thursday after militants planted a car bomb in a residential compound, the company said.
The withdrawal began hours after armed militants stormed an oil facility operated by France's Total, killing three police officers, and another group of gunmen invaded an oilfield run by Italy's Agip, a unit of ENI.
Shell's pullout involves about 400 foreign family members from residential compounds in Port Harcourt, Warri and Bonny Island. Staff will stay put and oil and gas production will not be affected, officials said.
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"We are not sure if this thing is going to deteriorate. If it deteriorates we will have fewer people to contend with," a senior Shell executive said.
A Total spokesman said the company had also begun to repatriate dependants numbering up to about 100 people in the wake of the car bombs.
Attacks on oil facilities and kidnappings of workers have become an almost a weekly occurrence in the world's eighth largest oil exporter. But Monday's car bomb attacks -- one in the car park of a Shell residential compound and the other outside Agip's operations base in the region's largest city Port Harcourt -- brought the violence closer to home.
No one was killed or injured, but nine cars were damaged in the Shell bombing. Continued...