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Tag: Oil workers

  • Oil workers want AMCON’s chair, Chike-Obi, sacked

    Oil workers want AMCON’s chair, Chike-Obi, sacked

    Oil workers acting under the aegis of Petroleum and  Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSN) SEAWOLF Branch, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Managing Director of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Mustapha Chike-Obi.

    The spokesperson of the association,. Femi Akpata who spoke on behalf of the oil workers, said for the past 22 months, their salaries have not been paid.

    Akpata said since Chike-Obi cannot keep his promise of paying their salary arrears after buying the company (SEAWOLF) from its owner, he should be sacked.

    He said the AMCON chief entered into agreement with the workers that all liabilities should be shifted to AMCON, lamenting that for 22 months now,  the workers have been waiting and nothing has happened.

    He said: “We have had several meetings with the Ministry of Petroleum, Labour and Productivity; the Ministry of Finance had to intervene insisting that AMCON should pay the claims. AMCON even called us to say they will pay since last year, yet nothing has been done.

    But AMCON has denied owing the workers any salary areas. AMCON spokesman, Kayode Lambo, said it is SEAWOLF that is indebted to AMCON.

    He said the people agitating for salary areas were not engaged by SEAWOLF,  but employes of another firm, called OMS.

    Lambo said AMCON is at the moment looking for ways to recover its money    SEAWOLF which entered into a contractual deal with First Bank that it is unwiling to pay. He urged the workers to approach the appointed liquidator, Mike Igbokwe  for their salaries.

  • Oil workers want AMCON’s chair, Chike-Obi, sacked

    Oil workers want AMCON’s chair, Chike-Obi, sacked

    Oil workers acting under the aegis of Petroleum and  Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSN) SEAWOLF Branch, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Managing Director of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Mustapha Chike-Obi.

    The spokesperson of the association,. Femi Akpata who spoke on behalf of the oil workers, said for the past 22 months, their salaries have not been paid.

    Akpata said since Chike-Obi cannot keep his promise of paying their salary arrears after buying the company (SEAWOLF) from its owner, he should be sacked.

    He said the AMCON chief entered into agreement with the workers that all liabilities should be shifted to AMCON, lamenting that for 22 months now,  the workers have been waiting and nothing has happened.

    He said: “We have had several meetings with the Ministry of Petroleum, Labour and Productivity; the Ministry of Finance had to intervene insisting that AMCON should pay the claims. AMCON even called us to say they will pay since last year, yet nothing has been done.

    But AMCON has denied owing the workers any salary areas. AMCON spokesman, Kayode Lambo, said it is SEAWOLF that is indebted to AMCON.

    He said the people agitating for salary areas were not engaged by SEAWOLF,  but employes of another firm, called OMS.

    Lambo said AMCON is at the moment looking for ways to recover its money    SEAWOLF which entered into a contractual deal with First Bank that it is unwiling to pay. He urged the workers to approach the appointed liquidator, Mike Igbokwe  for their salaries.

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  • PENGASSAN urges Buhari to support oil workers training

    PENGASSAN urges Buhari to support oil workers training

    The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to support the workers in the oil and gas industry for training, research and development in all aspects of petroleum operations and technology to enhance the acquisition of skills and foster competitiveness.

    The oil workers’ union has also called for effective utilisation of the seismic data and other discoveries made under the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) research partnerships as well as the exploration of values created by the PTDF trained scholars to augment the industry’s skills/expertise gap.

    PENGASSAN’s President, Comrade Francis Johnson made the call in Lagos while briefing reporters.

    He said: “We call on President Muhammadu Buhari to aggressively support the workers in the oil and gas industry to deepen training, research and development in all aspects of petroleum operations and technology to enhance the acquisition of skillset/expertise and foster competitiveness because the key driver of any industrial and economic growth is Research and Development.

    “The need to continuously train oil workers and improve on research and development is one of the most important factors that will cause the effective drive which will make the oil sector accomplish optimal performance”.

    According him, the PTDF has also done extensive research which led to the development and patenting of Zeolite, a catalyst for the improved refining of heavy crudes, which is produced from local clay.

    “In view of the position of President Buhari on the need to resume exploration activities in the Chad Basin, we are aware that the PTDF has done extensive research on the chad basin from 2003 to date through one of its upgrade facilities at the University of Maiduguri on the “effect of volcanic and intrusive generation and accumulation of hydrocarbons in Nigeria’s flange of the Chad Basin,” he said.

  • Avoid hasty removal of subsidy, Buhari urged

    Avoid hasty removal of subsidy, Buhari urged

    President Muhammad Buhari should not ground the economy by immediately removing oil subsidy, oil workers have warned.

    The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) yesterday warned that any attempt by the Federal Government, to abruptly remove subsidy on petroleum products will bring more hardship on Nigerians.

    In a statement signed by its spokesman, Emmanuel Ojugbana, the body warned that the advice in some quarters that  the government should  stop paying subsidies to oil marketers was wrong and ill-timed.

    It said removing subsidy, while the country depends on importation of refined products will make prices of fuel out of the reach of masses and further cause inflation.

    It said if local refining is not increased to meet local demand for petroleum products, especially petrol, removing subsidy would worsen the conditions of Nigerians.

    According to the union, the government should ensure that the deregulation policy is based on local production, and not importation.

    “Importation of refined petroleum products is also putting the naira under undue pressure and creating social problems for the economy. This is unacceptable to PENGASSAN.

    “Abrupt removal of fuel subsidy will create chaos that may ground the economy. PENGASSAN calls for well-coordinated measures with timeline to achieve self-sufficiency in local refining as a means of proffering acceptable steps to end fuel subsidy.

  • Oil workers urge Buhari on gas sector development

    oil workers acting under the aegis of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) have urged the Federal Government to make gas its major source of earnings.

    In a statement signed by Comrades Francis Johnson and Bayo  Olowoshile,( President and General Secretary respectively), the group, said it is high time the country diversified its economy, by giving more attention to gas exploration and exportation for growth.

    It said Nigeria’s proven gas reserves estimated at 5.2 trillion cubit metres (tcm)/183 trillion cubic feet(tcf) is huge and capable of bringing huge revenue to the Federal Government if well harnessed.

    It said the annual gas flared estimated at 31.5 billion cubit metres bcm/ 1.1 trillion cubit feet(tcf) valued at $2.5billion is also a huge economic waste, adding that the waste can be prevented if the right policies are in place.

    “With 172million estimated population and our vast growing, but grossly under exploited gas markets, the global campaign for the promotion of more environment friendly energy, emphasis on the activities of gas will preserve our forest, curtail diversification, and generate more revenues for the country. Based on this, the government of President Muhammad Buhari will be recording a far more success in the area of improving fiscal resources for the growth of the economy,’’ it said.

    It explained that the depleted fortune of Nigeria’s foreign reserves and failure of the Federal Government to meet budgetary expectations in recent time, was as a result of the fact that the country depends majorly on oil.

    According to the body, there is the need for a paradigm shift from oil to gas to grow the economy well, stressing that billions of dollars being  by Nigeria is not good enough.

  • Oil workers invade AMCON’s office over unpaid salaries

    Oil workers invade AMCON’s office over unpaid salaries

    Oil workers acting under the aegis of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG),  yesterday disrupted normal office activities at the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) headquarters in Abuja.

    Dressed in their usual oil extracting uniforms with Seawolf inscribed, the aggrieved workers protested unpaid 22 months salary arrears AMCON allegedly owed them.

    The angry workers were seen with placards which read: “AMCON enough is enough, pay us our money”, “Ministry of Labour and Productivity, tell AMCON to pay us our money”, “AMCON 48 hours have come and gone, pay us our money” and “Our children are out of school due our inability to pay school fees. Pay us our money”.

    Chairman of Seawolf branch of the union, Christian Okojie while speaking with reporters lamented that AMCON agreed to attend to them 48 hours after their initial protest.

    According to him, several letters and mails have been written to him including text messages seeking to have an audience with the management, adding that it was frustrated.

    Okojie said: “We are here to get our terminal benefits and outstanding salaries. AMCON took over our management two years ago. When they came in, they assured us that they will take care of our welfares. They only paid us two months salaries, December 2013 and January 2014.

    “Since then, they have refused to pay after making several attempts to get AMCON to a roundtable to chart a way forward for the workers.

    “We have gone to Ministry of Labour and Productivity, Ministry of Petroleum. In all the meetings we held, they asked AMCON to pay but AMCON has refused to comply.”

    In his remark, PENGASSAN Chairman Godfrey Okoloba said members of the association resolved to remain in AMCON’s premises until the Federal Government intervenes in the situation.

    “Our children are hungry, some are out of schools, in fact three of our members are in mortuary and their widows have not been taken care of for the past two months now. We don’t have anywhere to go to. We will sleep here.”

    Asked if deliberate efforts were made to meet the AMCON executive, Okoloba restated that the Chief Executive Officer of AMCON Mr. Mustapha Chike-obi met with them and promised to attend to the situation after 48 hours. However, three weeks after, AMCON was yet to reach out to them.

    However, Chike-Obi denied owing the aggrieved workers. He alleged that the workers were not genuine staff of the Offshore Management Services (OMS) but engaged through an agent.

    He said: “AMCON is trying to sell the oil rigs and payback the company so the company can pay the workers. We do not owe them. The rigs have not been working in the past six months.”

  • Oil workers dare AMCON over N3b payment

    Oil workers dare AMCON over N3b payment

    Members of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), yesterday vowed to die, if the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) fails to pay the N3 billion belonging to its members.

    Chairman of the Seawolf Branch oF NUPENG, Christian Okoji, who spoke during a protest he led to AMCON’s office inAbuja,  said AMCON had been owing the workers for 18 months, including their salaries and terminal benefits.

    He said: “Precisely December 2013, AMCON came and bought the company. So when they came, they assured us that they are going to change the system because the former management was having financial constraint. “Based on that, they came and asked us to denounce our former company and send all our personal data to them and from that moment they will be paying the salaries.”

    He stated that AMCON only paid them for two months, December 2013 and January  last year respectively.

    “We have been working, the three rigs, one of the rigs was working with Total, one with Addax and the last with Conoil. They were all working making good money. The least payment for those rigs was about  $130,000  per day. So the rigs were making so much money. At the end of the day, AMCON refused to continue the payment of salaries. So our organisation which is Nupeng called them to order to know the fate of the workers and know why AMCON has refused to pay their members

    Responding for AMCON,  its Executive Director, Credit, Abbas Mohammed Jega said Seawolf is owing AMCON and can not pay the protesters until the company pays them.

    “Now Seawolf took a loan from FirstBank and bought rigs and they couldn’t operate the rigs very well and they were losing money, they were losing contracts, they couldn’t pay back the loan to FirstBank. So FirstBank asked us to buy the loan so we bought the loan from First Bank and we called the owners of Seawolf to come and pay their loans, come and tell us how you want to pay the loan, for over a year we were looking at the figures we couldn’t agree, seawolf is not in a position to do business and to pay the loans.”

  • Oil workers criticise new payroll

    OIL workers have warned the Federal Government to halt the planned implementation of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) in the oil and gas sector, describing it as not conformable.

    Speaking against the backdrop of a deadline by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to some agencies in the industry, the workers said if the government insists on imposing the IPPIS, they would shut it down.

    Speaking in Lagos at the weekend, the President of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN), Babatunde Ogun and the National Public Relations Officer, Comrade Seyi Gambo, said the government agencies were operating an International Financial Reporting System (IFRS) and there was no need to introduce a new one.

    Ogun noted that the current system is easy and makes auditing of personnel possible.

    He said: “We, PENGASSAN, have written to the Ministers of Petroleum Resources, and Labour and Productivity, as well as the Accountant-General of the Federation on our reservations about the planned implementation of the IPPIS policy in our industry. We are against our industry being used a guinea pig to try all forms of policies that is not working in other industry,” he said.

    Gambo explained that the new system has some defects. “The IPPIS does not include allowances that are pre-determined because of their technical nature.”

  • Oil workers plan to resist sale of refineries

    Oil workers plan to resist sale of refineries

    Oil workers under the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), have said they would resist the Federal Government’s plan to sell the nation’s refineries.

    The two trade unions said their opposition to the sale is against national interest and that the country would not benefit from the exercise.

    PENGASSAN President, Comrade Babatunde Ogun, claims the deal could benefit some government’s officials’ cronies.

    He said the reasons for the problems at the refineries were that the government underfunded the refineries and refused to carry out Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM), and supply crude to them.

    He explained that instead of opting for sale, the Federal Government should adopt a modified process tailored towards the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG), with the National Oil Company (NOC), as owners of the four refineries holding a substantial minority shares, while core investors/local participation hold the working majority with the staff, trade unions, and the host communities holding minority shares.

    He advised that the government to deal with the problem of pipelines vandalism that hamper the supply of crude oil to the refineries as well as carry out TAM and see if the refineries would not work.

    Ogun said: “The proposed sale of the refineries is against the overall national interest, but in the interest of a few, who are lurking around the corridors of power to milk the country dry. How can a country be selling all its national assets in the name of privatisation? For whose benefit are such sales?

    “If you recall, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua reversed the privatisation of the refineries by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, with a promise to carry out Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM), on them to ensure that they were sold not as scrap. On assumption to office, President Goodluck Jonathan also promised to carry out TAM on the refineries.

    “Even the controversial Kalu Idika Kalu-led National Refineries Special Task Force also had TAM or rehabilitation of the refineries to make them work in a safe and reliable manner as part of its recommendations. As we are talking now, nothing has been significantly done.

    “Why is the government proposing the sale of these national edifices without doing the needful to ensure that the refineries work at their optimal capacity? Nigerians and the public deserve to know more on the desperate reasons for the spate and row of proposed privatisation, even when the selfish motives of these proposed national assets sales can spell doom for the country.”

    He also said the refineries should be entities independent of either the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) or the proposed NOC as in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), while the board of management of each refining company should be fully responsible for its success and failure.

    Ogun said those planning to sell the refineries and their cronies planning to buy them should emulate Alhaji Aliko Dangote and establish their own refineries instead of waiting to corner the nation’s common investment.

    He also said instead of privatising the refineries, the government should grant effective incentives to allow for the development of private refineries alongside the existing ones, adding that a framework should be articulated that will make available, required crude for effective functioning of local refineries.

    “There is need to incentivize and,or compel IOCs to refine an agreed percentage of crude oil in the country. A suggestion is to tie upstream licensing to downstream investment and private ownerships of jetties should be encouraged.”

    “As the privatisation trend continues, the Nigerian public will need to know from the process drivers, the number of jobs and investment that have been created as against the reality that some cronies are now being recruited as technical partners to front for the high and mighty as was the case with Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited, which the government sold to Indorama for $225 million, a mega plant that is the second largest in Africa, which at the time of its sale was worth about $2.5 billion as fair market value.”

    He continued: “Also at the time of the sale, the company was fully stocked and the materials needed for its TAM were being bought by the government. It only required working capital that was persistently blocked by bureaucratic bottleneck and undue government interference that delayed its efficiency.”

    “Petroleum Minister Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke  said two weeks ago that the nation’s four refineries would be put up for sale by the first quarter of next year.

    “We would like to see major infrastructural entities, such as refineries moving out of government’s hands into the private sector. Government does not want to be in the business of running major infrastructure entities and we haven’t done a very good job at it over all these years.”

    “We are right now undergoing a major turnaround maintenance programme” of the refineries, Mrs Alison-Madueke said.

  • Oil workers protest exclusion from PIB public hearing

    Members of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) have protested their exclusion from the National Assembly’s public hearing on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

    They alleged that critical stakeholders in the oil and gas industry were denied the opportunity of making their presentations at the hearing.

    The action of the National Assembly Joint Committee was deliberate and not in the interest of the nation. They said the committee ended the hearing, without allowing the invited stakeholders to make their presentations.

    In a position paper sent to The Nation, the PENGASSAN’s President, Mr Babatunde Ogun, said 14 out of the 54 memoranda given to the National Assembly was presented during the hearing.

    Ogun listed the memoranda to include expunging the provision granting the President powers to use his discretion to award petroleum licences and leases from PIB; ensuring that the bill provides transparency on the award of contracts and licensces, and other accompanying processes.

    Others are ensuring that the bill builds on the efforts of National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) by erasing the ’black hole’ perception of the oil and gas industry; mandatory publication of all licences, tenders, and contracts; voiding confidentiality clauses for oil revenue and payment information; publication of statistical figures of oil operations that include but not limited to production export and import on quarterly basis; annual reports and audits of operations and commercial and associated institutions created by the PIB, National Petroleum Assets Management Corporation/ Company.

    Ogun stressed the need for critical examination of proposed changes in the fiscal regime to ensure that Nigeria does not discourage investments in oil and gas.

    He said: “It is our considered view that the PIB should allow for the optimisation of returns to Nigeria from its oil and gas resources without stifling investments and growth of the industry. The government will, therefore, have to strike a balance between taking a significantly higher stake from industry operations and ensuring the sustainable growth of the industry. To this end, we suggest that the National Assembly should arrange a meeting between the government represented by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Oil Producers Trade Section (OPTS) to reconcile the disagreements on the fiscal regimes.”

    The unions called for the curtailing of the power of the Minister under the PIB to avoid the bureaucracy that characterises the management of the sector; fixing the tenure of the board, chief executive officer and other management staff of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and National Oil Company (NOC) to prevent undue interference of the board and ensuring that workers meet the targets set for them.

    Ogun said the Petroleum Host CommunityFund(PHCF) should cover communities hosting oil and gas resources and assets, including downstream infrastructure, adding that independent and effective regulators should be provided to ensure the bill’s success.

    “The Joint Venture(JV) has, however, been bedevilled by inadequate funding, as the government has not being able to meet its cash call obligations. The Petroleum Minister only recently pointed out that inadequate JV funding was negatively impacting on exploration and with it, reserves addition. The proposal under the PIB for the JV assets to be under a government-owned corporation does not seem to solve this cash call problem even with the proposed seed capital. There is no doubt that government’s finances are constrained, what will therefore, be more practical is for government to divest some of its holdings in the NPAMC while members of the public hold the rest. This way, the JV will be better funded,” he added.

    He said the oil firms are putting 10 per cent of their profits into the fund, adding that they cannot draw from it when their facilities are vandalised.

    According to him, regulatory functions are placed under the Ministry of Petroleum in line with the provisions of the PIB. He said the call for the establishment of the Upstream Petroleum Inspectorate (UPI) and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Agency (DPRA) to regulate the sector is in order, adding that this is the only way to prevent abuse of power.