Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has finally made a rather belated appeal on Nigerian oil workers to cancel their planned three day warning strike.
However the appeal fell on deaf ears as the two oil workers’ unions, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), have vowed to press on with the strike.
Joint strike by white collar PENGASSAN and sister blue cover NUPENG would entail total shut-in of the nation’s average daily hydrocarbon liquid output of about 2.5 million barrels a day.
It will also build huge operations cost on shutting down and starting up production and processing facilities at the beginning and end of the strike respectfully.
If the workers abandon production, revenue accruable from some 7.5 million barrels of oil and natural gas liquids will be lost to production deferment.
NNPC holds 60 per cent interest in a multiplicity of exploration and production joint ventures, and also values in production shares from production sharing contracts operated by producing companies in Nigeria.
NUPENG and PENGASSAN which control over 90 per cent of workers in the industry declared the strike to protest a spate of kidnapping and killing of oil workers in the Niger Delta since late December 2005.
In his appeal to the workers in Abuja at the weekend, Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr. Funson Kupolokun, commended them for showing concern on the situation in the Niger Delta and commiserated with them on the death of their members.
He however told the worker’s representatives that the planned strike was not the best way to honour their deceased colleagues. He, instead, enjoined them to contribute in finding lasting solution to the Niger Delta problem.
In a release by the corporation’s spokesman, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, Mr. Kupolokun was quoted as listing the Niger Delta problems to include unemployment, underdevelopment, low literacy level, marginalisation, social disintegration and environmental degradation.
These problems, he said , were already being addressed by government.
But NUPENG president, Comrade Peter Akpatason, told Daily Champion last night that the strike would go on as planned, vowing that decision of the oil workers on the issue was irreversible.
He accused the NNPC and the federal government of mismanaging oil wealth, saying that led to the crises that have come to claim the lives of oil workers.