PENGASSAN Company News

Nigerian oil workers in the white-collar Pengassan are on strike but can't halt production all of a sudden, said its President Babatunde Ogun.

A union official told Dow Jones Newswires the ExxonMobil Corp. has shut in around 200,000 barrels a day of crude output in Nigeria.

A strike that threatened to bring the oil industry in Nigeria to a dangerous precipice has been called off.

Oil production and loading will be shut down by midnight Wednesday as part of ongoing nationwide strike, a leader of one of the oil unions said late Wednesday.

The two main Nigerian oil workers' unions on Thursday threatened a strike next week to protest against rising violence in the country's petroleum-producing southern region.

Nigeria's oil workers' unions said Thursday they had called off a strike that started Wednesday, with immediate effect.

A meeting between state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNP.YY) and representatives of Nigeria's two oil unions in Abuja Friday ended deadlocked, leaving in place a three-day strike planned for September. 13.

epresentatives of Nigeria's two oil unions are meeting in Abuja Thursday with officials of the Ministry of Labor and other stakeholders in the oil industry, over threats by the unions to start a three-day strike from Sept. 13.

In separate moves, Nigeria's Ministry of Labor and Productivity, and state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. are reaching out to the country's two oil unions in a bid to avert their planned strike action, a source close to the unions said.

Nigeria's two oil workers unions said Tuesday they had no immediate plans to strike or pull their members out of the increasingly dangerous Niger Delta region where militants have attacked facilities and taken hostages.

Nigerian oil unions representing thousands of oil workers will hold a meeting Monday to discuss their members' safety and whether its safe for them to go to work at individual companies, a union president said.

Nigeria's oil unions will press ahead with their plans to strike from Jan. 1, 2004, in protest against the government's plans to privatize the country's four refineries.

Senior Shell employees warned earlier this week that a delay by the company in resolving a dispute over its corporate restructuring could lead to fresh strikes.

PENGASSAN said Shell has avoided talks to try and end a protracted lockout at the firm's local offices in Nigeria.

PENGASSAN said it was disappointed with the progress of talks to end a lockout at Shell local offices now in its eighth day.

The Nigerian oil worker that was kidnapped last week has been released.

PENGASSAN has issued a 30-day ultimatum to the management of major oil companies to commence negotiations and implement the collective agreement entered into with the union.

Oil unions in Nigeria are beginning to join the general strike action and are starting to withdraw their workers from crude export terminals and production facilities.

PENGASSAN said that Nigeria could face a total shutdown of its oil industry if the general strike over fuel prices is not resolved by Sunday.