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4 June, 2007
Privatisation auctions by Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) of refineries owned by the state’s Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) have brought further strikes and threats of strikes. The two oil workers’ unions in the country – ICEM affiliates PENGASSAN and NUPENG – are protesting the lack of transparency in the sales.
Late last week, branches of both unions at the Kaduna refinery threatened a shutdown of that facility if the BPE follows though on 51% sale of Nigeria’s second largest refinery. In mid-May, BPE threw out the lone offer for Kaduna, a US$102 million by the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC). But shortly thereafter, the government’s privatisation arm accepted a US$160 million bid by Bluestar Oil, which is a consortium of Nigerian industrial interests.
Bluestar had earlier won a bid on the larger Port Harcourt refinery with a US$561 million offer. The lack of transparency in that process brought a two-day strike by the unions on 24-25 May, which halted all shipments of crude oil into the refinery.
The branch unions of PENGASSAN and NUPENG at Kaduna called Bluestar’s bid “a deal … sealed under the table, to a company that has no record of refinery operations, and for a price that can only be described as give-away.”
The statement by the unions added: “Based on the glaring lack of transparency in the privatisation process and insincerity on the part of BPE, the sale of (Kaduna) fails to meet the minimum standard, set by the government and cannot in any sense of the word be said to have been a transparent exercise.
“First, the sole bidder (CNPC), failed to match the undisclosed reserved price of Kaduna during the first and second rounds of bidding, suddenly another company (Bluestar) that did not submit a bit, that did not conduct any due diligence on the facility, that is completely alien to the transaction, that has no track record in the refining sector, is now said to have 51% shares of Kaduna in a process the BPE describes as “closed-in” bidding.”
PENGASSAN and NUPENG have vowed to resist the turnover to Bluestar until all the issues raised by the union are resolved.