Nigeria is on the verge of losing some 194,000 barrels of crude oil daily production if the dispute between the management of Chevron Nigeria Limited and a branch of its union, Petroleum and Natural Gas Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) is not resolved on time.
The dispute has lingered for three days and it does not seems as if there is an end in sight, as most of the meetings organised by both parties to resolve the issue have not yielded any result.
The protest embarked upon by the union is being carried out at the various locations of the company.
If crude oil production is halted, it means the country’s foreign revenue earning would be affected as the Federal Government owns 60 percent of the joint venture. It means the country would not be able to benefit from the current upsurge in the price of crude oil, which has now hovers around $68 and $70 per barrels because of the current face-off between the United States of America and Iran over the killing of latter’s military general.
As at Tuesday evening, the Federal Government through the Ministry of Labour was said to be intervening in the dispute.
Read also: FG to intervene in Chevron, union dispute
Lumumba Okugbawa, general secretary of PENGASSAN, in a telephone interview, told BusinessDay that the meeting was still ongoing. But another source close to the company said the issue was likely to be resolved Tuesday.
The workers were said to have taken to protest when they discovered that their allowances were seriously slashed by the managing directors.
According to inside sources, after agreement reached between the management and workers, some allowances were paid to the workers across board. But this time around, the managing director was said to have told the workers that the economic situation of the company would not allow him do much in respect of allowances.
So, he employed flat rate formula for everybody to the extent that even the people at the lowest level of the salary cadre became so dissatisfied with the development.
The PENGASSAN Chevron branch has called for the removal of the chairman and managing director of Chevron, Jeff Ewing.
They said the protest was to express their lack of no confidence with the leadership of Jeff Ewing. According to them, he should be removed and never be reassigned to another office for his lack of integrity.
