Oil Facilities Shutdown: NNPC In Talks With Labour Unions

The Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) has said it is in talks
with the leadership of the Petroleum and
Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of
Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the National
Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas



The labour unions, yesterday, directed
employees of the Nigerian Petroleum
Development Company (NPDC) to
shutdown indefinitely their locations
and all oil production facilities
nationwide in a bid to force the federal
government to reverse the transfer of
operatorship on the oil mining leases
(OMLs) 42, 40 and 30.
According to the unio

ns, the assets which
were previously operated by the Shell
Petroleum Development Company (SPDC)
were allegedly transferred in a manner
that fell short of due process, claiming it
would affect the fortunes of the NPDC
and its workers.
But speaking exclusively to LEADERSHIP
yesterday, the group general manager,
Public Affairs Department of the NNPC,
Ohi ALegbe, maintained that the process
followed industry best practices as
obtainable all over the world. He stated
that the transaction is not an outright
sale but a joint operatorship between the
NPDC, which holds 55 per cent shares of
the assets on behalf of the federal
government, and the private companies
which jointly hold 45 per cent stake in
the assets.
Alegbe, who stressed that it was wrong to
refer to the transaction as an outright
sale, said, “It is a joint operatorship
which is what is obtainable everywhere
in the world as industry best practice.
The NPDC holds 55 per cent share in the
OMLs while the other companies hold 45
per cent,” he explained.
He also disclosed that the corporation
engaged the labour unions all through
the entire process of the operatorship
transfer and wondered why the unions
would take this drastic decision of
shutting down production platforms to
express any conceived grievance. Alegbe
also disclosed that the corporation had,
last week, held a meeting with the labour
unions where they pleaded with them to
reconsider their decision to embark on
strike but the plea failed to yield positive
result.
However, he said that in order to resolve
the present situation, the corporation is
still in talks with the labour leaders and
they are handling the issue as a matter
of urgency.
He said, “We are meeting with them, we
met with them last week not to go on
strike but they still went ahead.
However, we are handling the matter
and talking to them to call off the strike.
We hope to resolve the matter quickly.”
According to details of the now
controversial transaction, Elcrest
Exploration and Production Nigeria
Limited, a joint venture with Eland Oil
and Gas Plc, was awarded the
operatorship of OML 40 while Neconde
Energy Limited and Shorline Natural
resources Limited were equally awarded
operatorship of OML 42 and 30
respectively.