By Tom Ashby LAGOS, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Nigerian militants holding four foreign oil workers hostage accused Italian oil giant ENI <ENI.MI> of offering ransoms for their release and said they would rather kill the men than free them for cash. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) abducted the three Italians and one Lebanese on Dec. 7 from the Brass oil export terminal operated by ENI unit Agip. "Agip for the last few days has offered several criminals in the delta huge sums as ransom, even asking us to name our price for the release of these hostages," MEND said in an email to the media, adding that this was illegal in both Italy and Nigeria. "Rather that release them (for money), the hostages will all be shot. ... The release of these four individuals is tied to the release of four hostages of Niger Delta origin in Nigerian government hands," it said. An Agip spokesman in Nigeria was not available for comment. When it staged the kidnapping on Dec. 7, MEND demanded the release of two jailed leaders from the delta, compensation to villagers for oil pollution, transfer of control over oil resources from the government to local communities and reparations for 50 years of "enslavement" by the oil industry. Militancy has been growing in the vast wetlands region for decades, fuelled by poverty, lawlessness and government neglect. Nigeria is the world's eighth largest oil exporter, but growing unrest has curbed production and scared away investors. On Monday MEND detonated two car bombs in oil company compounds in the delta city of Port Harcourt, which damaged some cars and buildings but caused no casualties. They also issued photographs of the four hostages. A series of attacks by MEND in February forced Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> to withdraw from the western delta, cutting Nigerian oil output by a fifth. MEND said on Wednesday that Agip had portrayed the group as criminals without any justification for its year-long armed insurgency against the Nigerian government. The government originally dismissed MEND as criminals and ransom seekers, but has since tried to start talks and promised jobs and investments for the neglected region, which is home to all the OPEC nation's oil and gas resources.
