3 Nigeria oil firm staffers killed fixing pipeline
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Nigeria's state-run oil company says suspected oil thieves have killed three of its employees near Nigeria's commercial capital.
Fidel Pepple, a spokesman for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, said in a statement Monday that gunmen shot at a team of engineers and technicians doing repairs on an oil pipeline in a town just north of Lagos this weekend. Others were hurt in the attack, he said.
Pepple said the pipeline was under repair after being vandalized.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oil theft is common in Nigeria, an impoverished West African nation.
However, such attacks are rare around Lagos. They typically happen in the nation's oil-rich southern delta, a maze of creeks and swamps about the size of Portugal.
Nigeria, an OPEC member, is a top exporter of crude to the U.S.