Oil unions may strike January 1 to protest privatisation

Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) may start an indefinite nationwide strike on January 1 to protest plans by the government to privatise the four stateowned oil refineries in the first quarter, reports Bloomberg. A proposal to sell the refineries, which have a combined capacity of 445,000 barrels a day, is “against the overall national interest and in the interest of a few,” the managerlevel PENGASSAN, and the blue-collar NUPENG said on Wednesday in a joint e-mailed statement.

The two organisations have a combined membership of at least 25,000. Diezani Alison-Madueke, petroleum minister, told Bloomberg TV Africa in an interview in London that the government will pursue the plan after a presidential audit of the facilities last year recommended their sale. Nigeria relies on fuel imports to meet more than 70 percent of its needs. The state-owned plants operate at a fraction of their capacity because of poor maintenance and aging equipment. The country exchanges 60,000 barrels a day of crude for products with Trafigura Beheer BV and a similar amount with Societe Ivoirienne de Raffinage’s refinery in Ivory Coast, according to Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).