(Recasts, adds no impact on Shell production) By Austin Ekeinde PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Western oil companies evacuated staff from three oilfields in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta on Tuesday after gunmen killed 12 people including four community chiefs in a dispute over oil money. A spokesman for Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> said there was no impact on production, while a spokesman for Chevron <CVX.N> declined to comment. The two companies operate oilfields in the area accounting for about 60,000 barrels per day of production. Sources in the Kula community where the attack took place said it was caused by a long-running dispute between local factions over the distribution of money given by oil companies operating there. The attack took place on Sunday, when gunmen opened fire on a small ferry carrying 14 passengers to Kula in the coastal area of Rivers state, a maze of mangrove-lined creeks. "There are just two survivors who are being treated for bullet wounds in Port Harcourt," said a police spokeswoman in the Rivers state capital. In spill-over action on Monday night, one faction set a house boat at Shell's Ekulama 2 oilfield station on fire, a military source said. Ekulama 2 is the largest of three oilfields in the area, which together pump 60,000 barrels a day. "We have evacuated some of our staff from the facilities. It has not affected production yet," said a Shell spokesman in Lagos. Sunday's killings did not fit the delta's usual pattern of militant raids on oil production facilities or kidnappings of oil workers for ransom. Troops have been sent into the area, which has been the scene of repeated communal clashes and oil facility invasions over the past few years. LOCAL RIVALRY Kula community sources said a faction that had challenged the authority of local chiefs to decide how to share out money and benefits given by oil companies had been driven out of the area two years ago. That faction was now trying to come back into the community and fighting erupted last Friday, the sources said, adding that several houses were burnt. The chiefs killed on Sunday were among the elders who had been in control over the past two years. The security situation in the delta worsened in 2006 and many fear it will deteriorate further in the build-up to the Nigerian elections scheduled for April as armed thugs sponsored by local politicians return to action. The delta accounts for all oil production from Nigeria, the world's eighth-biggest exporter, and poverty fuels militancy and crime in its riverine communities. A fifth of oil production capacity is still shut down due to attacks last February. A militant group fighting for local control over oil assets has been holding captive three Italians and one Lebanese employed by Italian oil firm Agip since Dec. 7 in another part of the delta. Five Chinese telecom workers are also being held hostage in Rivers state after they were kidnapped for ransom on Jan. 5.
