OSLO: Norwegian oil group Statoil, which has 12 employees "involved" in a hostage-taking in Algeria, has beefed up security at several of its sites, company chief Helge Lund said on Thursday.
"I can confirm that we have increased the level of security at several other Statoil installations," Lund told reporters, without providing any details.
Statoil jointly operates, with British oil giant BP and state-run Algerian energy firm Sonatrach, the In Amenas gas field where a group of Islamists took 41 foreigners hostage on Wednesday.
Statoil said it had 17 employees at or around the site at the time of the attack.
Five of them are safe, and 12 others -- nine Norwegians and three Algerians -- are "involved" or "affected" by the hostage taking, Statoil and Norwegian authorities said.
The use of the vague words "involved" and "affected" could mean that the employees were taken hostage or managed to hide from the attackers.
For security reasons, neither the company nor the Norwegian government would be more specific on the issue.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg held a press conference late on Wednesday and described the situation as "serious and hard to get an overview of."
On Wednesday, a Norwegian woman whose husband is employed at the In Amenas site told local daily BT that he had called her and told her he had been taken hostage.
The woman, whose name was not disclosed, said her husband had given her a telephone number to pass on to police, which she understood to be the number of the hostage takers.
"He told me he had been kidnapped.
There was someone dictating to him what he was supposed to say in English.
The police called the number he gave me.
The conversation was cut off after a few seconds," she said.
Statoil also operates the In Salah gas field in Algeria, and has an exploration license on the Hassi Mouina gas field, which is not yet in operation unlike the two other fields.
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