Thursday, August 10, 2006; Posted: 10:39 a.m. EDT (14:39 GMT)

"He is well," Bilfinger Berger CEO Herbert Bodner said at a news conference in Stuttgart, adding that he had been in touch with the captive, 62-year-old Guido Schiffarth, several times. He declined to give further details.

The Foreign Ministry in Berlin declined to comment on Schiffarth's fate or efforts to secure his release.

The militants on Wednesday issued a photograph of Schiffarth and a statement purportedly written by him in an e-mail which also restated their demand for the release of two jailed ethnic leaders.

Schiffarth said he was being treated well but wanted to go home.

He was abducted from his car by militants disguised as soldiers in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt on August 3 and taken away in a speedboat.

It was another in a series of attacks that began this year and have targeted oil company facilities and executives.

The militants belong to a previously unknown group called the Movement of the Niger Delta People. They also want more jobs and investment by Bilfinger Berger in the community.

The oil-rich Niger Delta has been the scene of kidnappings and unrest as militants and activists demand that oil companies compensate the poverty-stricken region.

Nigeria is the fourth largest exporter of oil to the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration.