Sudanese and Chinese authorities were seeking on Monday to contact the kidnappers of nine Chinese oil workers snatched near Sudan's disputed oil district of Abyei.

"To now we haven't any information about the kidnappers," China's ambassador to Khartoum Li Chengwen told AFP. "There is no communication between us and the kidnapped or the kidnappers. We are trying to collect new information"

The three Chinese engineers and six other workers employed by the China National Petroleum Corporation were seized by armed men on Sunday while they were travelling near Heglig, which is not far from Abyei.

Diplomats have said a Sudanese driver was also kidnapped.

Heglig lies near the line separating the former warring parties of north and south Sudan, in the Muglad Basin where most of Sudan's proven oil reserves are found.

Ali Yousuf, director of protocol at the Sudanese foreign ministry, told AFP on Sunday that Sudanese forces were scouring the area of the kidnap, inside the "Block 4" oil field, but "no contact has been made with the kidnappers."

A diplomatic source has said that members of the Arab Messeria tribe carried out the kidnapping because they want a greater share of the region's oil revenue.