Italian oil company Eni has confirmed that three people died near the company's oil pipeline in the Niger Delta region in Nigeria.

The victims were "presumably" part of a team responsible for repair works on the pipeline, a company spokesman said.

The oil pipeline was damaged during an act of sabotage on March 24, after which production was shut and repair works were carried out. The repairs were concluded on Saturday, but the bodies not found until Sunday.

Eni said it has no evidence of additional people being injured, which some news agencies have reported.

The company has said it is working with Nigerian authorities to ascertain the cause of deaths.

Eni's business has struggled in Nigeria this year. The Agip oil pipeline in the Bayelsa State was closed for three days in January after an attack. Around 48,000 barrels of oil were affected over the three days.

Nigeria has suffered a spate of attacks on pipelines in the past few months, caused by attempted oil theft, including two refineries being shut in January because of sabotage.

Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari has said he will make it a major aim of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. to combat corruption within the company and crack down on oil vandalism. But some international oil majors have found the attacks disconcerting, with some withdrawing from their dealings with Nigeria because of disruptions to supply.

The repeated episodes of vandalism have also not helped Nigeria's domestic fuel crisis. Nigerians have faced heavy queues at the petrol pumps because of a lack of supply. NNPC vowed this week to end the fuel crisis as a matter of urgency, but gave no indication of how it would tackle the problem. Since international oil companies have pulled out of Nigeria, increased responsibility has fallen on NNPC to source oil products to meet domestic demand.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 30, 2016 12:45 ET (16:45 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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