Unidentified gunmen on Monday kidnapped a Lebanese engineer in southern Nigeria`s oil hub of Port Harcourt, police said.

The man was abducted late in the morning, Rivers state police spokeswoman Rita Abbey told AFP, adding that police were investigating the incident.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction.

The country`s most prominent armed militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), distanced itself from the abduction and offered to rescue him from the kidnappers.

`MEND was not involved in the incident involving the kidnapping of a Lebanese citizen,` it said in a statement adding it would assist in his `rescue and return him unharmed by locating and negotiating with his abductors`.

`This assistance is purely a goodwill gesture and does not affiliate us with the (Nigerian) government in any way,` said MEND which claims to be fighting for a greater share of the oil revenue for the local population in southern Nigeria.

In the past three years, Nigeria has seen a spate of kidnappings both of local and foreign oil workers and of relatives of prominent politicians, often by criminal gangs seeking a ransom, but sometimes also for political ends.

Since the beginning of 2006, militant attacks have cut Nigeria`s oil output by more than one quarter. Production currently stands at between 1.8 and two million barrels a day against 2.6 million barrels a day two years ago.