Babatunde Oke: PENGASSAN, NUPENG strike will affect oil production

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) began an indefinite strike on Monday,  and PENGASSAN chief Babatunde Oke said in a Reuters report that the action will  affect crude production in Nigeria.

The unions are protesting over the government’s failure to effectively maintain the country’s refineries or reduce its subsidised prices at the pump as oil prices fall to record lows.

The unions frequently strike or threaten to.

“We’ve commenced the strike. It will affect oil production, since all operations are on strike,” PENGASSAN chief Babatunde Oke told Reuters by telephone.

A strike in September caused little disruption to Africa’s biggest oil producer, apart from a brief interruption to natural gas supplies to Ghana, which did not suffer shortages as a result.

An oil executive said this strike was not expected to affect output for the same reason that others have not: shutting down oil production is a drastic move that requires large numbers of workers at production sites who are unwilling to go that far.

“It’s very difficult to shut them down, and once they do it would take them a week to get them back up. They never do it,” he said. “That’s the last thing anyone wants.”