Oil workers’ strike: FG, PENGASSAN, NUPENG meet today

To stop the ongoing indefinite strike by oil workers from dragging and taking a toll on the economy and Nigerians, officials of the Federal Government and representatives of the two unions in the oil and gas sector, Petroleum and National Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) and Nigerian Union of Petroleum and National Gas Workers (NUPENG), are meeting today in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
The outcome of the meeting will determine the direction of the strike. Should the meeting fail to prevail on the striking workers to back down, the effect may begin to bite harder from tomorrow as filling stations may run out of products. Fuel tankers were yesterday, the first day of the strike, prevented from loading at the various depots across the country.
At the Warri refinery, BusinessDay gathered that only skeletal services were carried out by workers said to be members of NUPENG (junior officials) following a directive from unions’ leadership. There was also some level of compliance in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, while the Kaduna refinery was locked up.
In Lagos, the effect is already showing with queues noticed at some filling stations following panic buying by motorsists and consumers who are buying in excess to see them through the strike period. Some of the depots where tankers were disallowed lifting products on Monday include NNPC Ejigbo depot, Oando and Mobil depots.
Expected at the Abuja meeting are Deziani Allison-Madueke, minister of petroleum and her counterpart in the labour and productivity ministry.
Francis Johnson, PENGASSAN president, said yesterday while the meeting holds, the strike would continue today, but that the unions were expecting government’s favourable response to their demands. Among the demands are the turnaround maintenance (TAM) of the refineries and reduction in pump prices of petroleum products in line with the slump in global prices of crude oil.
Others include evolving new strategies to combat pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft that have impacted negatively on the nation’s economy and employment in the country. They had last week notified of their intention to proceed on the strike.