A strike by Nigerian white-collar oil workers against Chevron’s local unit entered a third day, a union official said. Production remained unaffected.
The union and management will hold talks with Petroleum Minister H. Odein Ajumogobia tomorrow and with Abubakar Yar’Adua, head of the state-owned oil company, on June 27.
The strike will continue through the talks “as long as we are not getting what we want,” Jonathan Omare, secretary of the Chevron branch of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, or Pengassan, said by telephone.
Pengassan, in a letter sent to executives at the company’s headquarters in San Ramon, California, demanded the removal of Fred Nelson, the head of the Nigerian unit. The union also alleges that safety standards have lapsed and Nigerian employees have been replaced with expatriates.
“The company is continuing to engage all the stakeholders to resolve all the issues through dialogue,” Margaret Cooper, a spokeswoman for Chevron, said in an e-mail yesterday. “It is still too early to comment on any potential impact of the declared work stoppage on our operations.” She didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment today.
Plans to stage the industrial action at Chevron’s headquarters in the Lagos suburb of Lekki were announced June 20 after the head of state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. had to cancel a meeting with union officials to attend an oil summit in Saudi Arabia.
Chevron in 2007 produced about 350,000 barrels of oil a day from its 32 fields in Nigeria, the company’s Web site said.
Yesterday, Chevron’s Nigeria unit declared force majeure, a clause that allows it to suspend supply contracts for reasons beyond its control, on onshore oil production in the country after a pipeline was breached June 19.
Omare said the union denounced the attack and was “sympathetic” to Chevron because Pengassan members are also stakeholders in the company.
Pengassan, which had previously tried to avoid disruption to crude production and exports during strikes, in April halted about 850,000 barrels a day, or almost half of Nigeria’s average production, in a dispute with Exxon Mobil Corp.
Labor strikes and militant attacks against Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s joint venture unit this year have seen Angola surpass Nigeria as Africa’s biggest oil producer.