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By Austin Ekeinde

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Gunmen abducted a Lebanese construction worker near the Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, police said on Wednesday.

The kidnapping, at Mbiama community in Rivers state, brought to nine the number of foreigners held by armed groups in the lawless delta, which accounts for all of Nigeria's oil production.

Police said Raymond Therezes, an employee of local firm Alren Construction Nigeria Ltd, was working at a construction site when he was seized.

"A group of four men, two of them dressed in army uniform and armed with guns, came to the construction site and took him away," Rivers state Police Commissioner Felix Ogbuadu told Reuters by telephone.

Kidnappings for ransom are common in the delta, a vast wetlands region where poor communities play host to a multi-billion dollar oil industry.

Growing violence against foreigners in Africa's top oil-producing country has prompted thousands of oil workers to leave the delta in the past year.

A wave of attacks last February led to a cut in Nigeria's oil production capacity of one-fifth. Output has yet to recover.

Gunmen shot dead a Lebanese engineer working for a local construction firm and kidnapped two Italians in two separate incidents last Friday in Port Harcourt, the main city in Africa's oil heartland.

The Italians who work for construction company Impregilo <IPGI.MI>, were freed on Monday.

Last week, a Lebanese man who was abducted in December along with three other Italian employees of energy giant ENI <ENI.MI> by militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), regained his freedom after 11 weeks.

MEND, which says it is fighting for a greater control of the Niger Delta's oil wealth, is still holding two Italians after releasing one earlier in February on health grounds.

The group has vowed to hold the pair till a new government takes over in Nigeria after a landmark vote in April.

MEND, which has made other political demands, including the release of two jailed leaders, emerged in late 2005 and brought a new sophistication and ferocity to decades of struggle by militants.

Its attacks have triggered a wave of copy-cat abductions for ransom around Port Harcourt, and rising political tensions ahead of the forthcoming general elections have contributed to the chaos in the southern delta.

Poverty and lack of basic infrastructure and services due to corruption in government fuel militancy and crime in a region which is almost the size of England.

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