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13 November, 2006
Nigerian oil workers’ unions PENGASSAN and NUPENG are demanding that the country’s National Assembly investigate the sale of Eleme Petrochemicals Ltd. by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to Indorama of Thailand. The privatisation of an olefins refinery in Port Harcourt to a group of investors was called into question by the two unions over several fiduciary disparities.
On another level, the two ICEM oil and gas union affiliates in Nigeria also continue to negotiate with management of Agip, a division of Italian energy company Eni, over security protections. The talks come during another peak in kidnappings and energy installation occupations along the Niger Delta, this time with Agip worksites as the main targets.
Agip staff has threatened a strike to shut all of the company’s production down unless it provides the same level of security that it provides to expatriate workers. Agip office workers at a regional headquarters in Port Harcourt did strike on 30 October, and barricaded the office in protest to the company’s delays in providing extra security and pay.
The security issue also threatens to renew a national oil and gas strike in Nigeria. On 11 October, PENGASSAN and NUPENG, after meeting jointly in Lagos, issued a statement that said a second phase of a national strike is close to being called because of “failed implementation” of the safety requirements that were agreed to after a two-day September strike.
The Nigerian oil and gas workers’ unions protested the government’s “lukewarm attitude” in convening a security forum. They also called the failure to date to set up a commission to investigate the kidnapping and murder of PENGASSAN member Nelson Ujeye “unacceptable.”
The unions, furthermore, called on the government to drop any plans to privatise the Kaduna refinery and petrochemicals division.
On the flawed BPE privatisation sale, the official communiqué to the government from PENGASSAN and NUPENG provides staunch evidence that the investors not only defaulted on loan requirements and still got possession of the refinery, but that after gaining possession Indorama sold spare parts to generate funds for the sale.
Since 75% of Eleme Petrochemical had been owned by the state, PENGASSAN and NUPENG said it was seeking the investigation “with a deep sense of patriotism.”
The joint statement reads: “The Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mrs. Irene Chigbue, was quoted as informing unsuspecting Nigerians that Indorama had paid the full price of US$225 million (N$30 billion) for the Eleme Petrochemical Co. Ltd. She was also quoted as describing the sale of EPCL as a star deal of the privatisation programme.
“While Mrs. Chigbue is entitled to express her opinion and make personal assessments of her ‘achievement’ in BPE, we in NUPENG and PENGASSAN have consistently maintained that the sale was another asset stripping and charade, ever done on the national assets of our great country.”
“Our position is premised on the fact that the selling of the plant at US$225 million is less than the US$336 million, which the Federal Government will pay as outlandish liabilities before Indorama took possession of the plant,” the communiqué stated.
Meanwhile, a rash of violent acts again hit Niger Delta oil and gas installations, proving the Nigerian government still has not found viable solutions to the safety and security of workers in the area.
About 40 Agip workers, all Nigerians, are still being held by militant youths at Eni’s Tebidaba flow-station in Bayelsa State. They, and eight other Nigerian workers, who managed to escape, were kidnapped there on 6 November by some 70 heavily-armed youth militia. The eight who had escaped told of a security guard being shot.