Oil Prices Slipped 3 cents

Oil prices were steady around $63 a barrel in Asian trading Friday despite a spate of oil-worker kidnappings and attacks in Nigeria's oil-rich delta region.

Light, sweet crude for June delivery slipped 3 cents to $63.16 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange midmorning in Singapore.

Gunmen in Nigeria, Africa's leading oil exporter, kidnapped at least 21 people in three attacks that left a Nigerian soldier dead, officials and witnesses said Thursday. Nine captives were later reported freed, of whom eight were foreigners.