Halliburton Workers Attacked in Algeria
The driver killed was Algerian. The injured included one American, several Britons, one Canadian, one Lebanese and one Algerian, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Eight were treated in a nearby hospital and released, while one remained hospitalized. The statement did not indicate the remaining patient's nationality.
The attack threatened to stain the oil-rich North African nation's international security image just as it is enjoying an oil boom and increased foreign investment after a bloody insurgency that wracked Algeria in the 1990s.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Several employees of BRC, or Brown & Root-Condor, were heading from their offices to a Sheraton Hotel where they are housed in the town of Bouchaoui, nine miles west of Algiers, when they were attacked in the early evening.
BRC is an Algerian-registered company created in 1994 and now owned jointly by Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc., formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, and affiliates of Algerian state-owned oil company Sonatrach. BRC has contracts with Algeria's oil and defense industries.
Most of the employees were in a bus following behind a security vehicle. The assailants hurled a bomb at the first vehicle, immediately killing the driver, security officials said.
Attackers then opened fire on the second bus, which quickly turned around and left before the gunmen dispersed, witnesses said.
Some of the BRC employees, visibly shaken, arrived at the Sheraton Hotel in Bouchaoui later Sunday, but refused to speak to reporters.
The British Foreign Office said three Britons were "slightly injured" in the attack. The Algerian Interior Ministry said four Britons were injured.
Algerian security forces immediately fanned out through the surrounding area and blocked off roads. The attack was seen as unusually bold because it was so near the capital and there is always heavy security in the area.
Attacks on American targets are rare in Algeria. Politics in the country were strongly anti-American during the Cold War, but Algiers has allied with the United States in its war on terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks, sharing intelligence and cooperating militarily.
Algerian militants previously have focused their wrath on homegrown security forces. Attacks on foreign targets in the past primarily hit the French, reflecting lingering bitterness at Algeria's former colonial ruler.
Algeria is trying to pull itself out of an Islamic insurgency that started 14 years ago and has killed an estimated 150,000 people. Large-scale fighting died down in the late 1990s, but sporadic violence continues to rattle the nation.
BRC officials in Algeria would not comment on the attack.
KBR Inc. is an independent, publicly traded subsidiary of Houston-based oil services contractor Halliburton Co., once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Melissa Norcross, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said in a statement that KBR "will continue to cooperateUwith the appropriate authorities throughout the ongoing investigation."
Copyright 2006 AFX News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
- USA Regional Banks Dramatically Step Up Loans to Oil and Gas
- Oil Markets Were Already Positioned for Iran Attack
- An Already Bad Situation in the Red Sea Just Got Worse
- Valeura Makes Three Oil Discoveries Offshore Thailand
- EU Offers $900MM in Funding for Energy Infrastructure Projects
- Chile's ENAP Says Working on Decarbonization Plan
- Germany to Provide $2.3B Aid for Decarbonization of Industrial Sectors
- Mexico Presidential Frontrunner Plans to Spend Billions on RE, Gas Power
- Macquarie Strategists Warn of Large Oil Price Correction
- JPMorgan CEO Says LNG Projects Delayed Mainly for Political Reasons
- USA, Venezuela Secretly Meet in Mexico as Oil Sanctions Deadline Nears
- EIA Ups Brent Oil Price Forecast for 2024 and 2025
- Petrobras Discovers Oil in Potiguar Basin
- EIR Says Oil Demand Will Not Peak Before 2030
- Biden Plans Sweeping Effort to Block Arctic Oil Drilling
- Pantheon Upgrades Kodiak Estimates to 1.2 Billion Barrels
- Dryad Flags Red Sea 'Electronic Warfare' Alert
- Russian Oil Is Once Again Trading Far Above the G-7 Price Cap Everywhere
- Oil and Gas Executives Predict WTI Oil Price
- New China Climate Chief Says Fossil Fuels Must Keep a Role
- Chinese Mega Company Makes Another Major Oilfield Discovery
- Oil and Gas Execs Reveal Where They See Henry Hub Price Heading
- Equinor Makes Discovery in North Sea
- ExxonMobil Racks Up Discoveries in Guyana Block Eyed by Chevron
- Macquarie Strategists Warn of Large Oil Price Correction
- DOI Announces Proposal for Second GOM Offshore Wind Auction
- Standard Chartered Reiterates $94 Brent Call
- Chevron, Hess Confident Embattled Merger Will Close Mid-2024