But the crisis appeared to be moving towards a resolution as protesters at a platform operated by ChevronTexaco left the facility ahead of talks on Wednesday, after a similar move by protesters at the Shell platforms on Monday and Tuesday.

"They have now vacated the facility. We have to see how things go tomorrow before we start production," a ChevronTexaco spokesman said.

Almost 1,000 unarmed villagers including women and children stormed the platforms located deep in the Niger Delta swamps on Sunday to call for more jobs and other benefits for their impoverished fishing community on the Atlantic seaboard.

The Kula residents trapped more than 100 oil workers on platforms at one stage, but there was no violence.

The government is due to discuss the residents' grievances against the oil companies on Tuesday ahead of Wednesday's talks mediated by the state government in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers state.

Both companies said the disruption would not affect export commitments in the short term. The lost output is worth about $4.5 million a day.

DISPUTES COMMON

Disputes between oil multinationals and communities are common in the vast wetlands region that pumps all of Nigeria's 2.3 million bpd of oil, and often lead to occupations, hostage-taking, extortion and sabotage.

Millions of impoverished inhabitants of the Niger Delta, largely abandoned by their own government, feel they should benefit more from oil wealth pumped from their tribal lands.

ChevronTexaco said it had already built a road, school and a town hall in Kula, while Shell also has a community programme there. But the community said in a statement that it had suffered from environmental pollution and wanted a formal agreement on jobs and capacity building.

In September, a heavily-armed ethnic militia threatened to blow up oil facilities in Rivers state on the eastern side of the delta, helping drive oil prices above $50 per barrel for the first time, in a dispute over oil money and political power.

But the leader of that group, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, said he was not involved in this action.

Earlier this month, other militants from the Ijaw ethnic group invaded a Shell oil flow station in the western delta near Warri. Seventeen were shot and injured by security forces.

Oil companies are on alert for possible violence in the western delta after local elections last week which Ijaw leaders said were rigged in favour of their rivals, the Itsekiri.