Nigeria counters strike with replacements

www.miami.com Posted on Tue, Feb. 18, 2003 BY DULUE MBACHU Associated Press

LAGOS, Nigeria - Nigeria started sending replacement workers to its oil-export terminals Monday, trying to stave off a shutdown of crude exports amid a strike by a powerful oil workers' union.

The strike over pay and working conditions comes as the threat of war against Iraq and a prolonged strike in Venezuela have pushed oil prices near two-year highs. Nigeria is the world's sixth-largest exporter of crude, and half of its exports go to the United States.

In London, benchmark Brent crude fell 52 cents Monday, hitting $31.98, after last week's two-year highs. U.S. markets were closed for Presidents' Day.

The strike was launched by union employees of the Department of Petroleum Resources, a key government unit overseeing operations of oil multinationals, including ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, Royal Dutch/Shell and TotalFinaElf. The strike is backed by the country's leading Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria.

''The strike is now total,'' association spokesman Femi Familoni said. ``But the effect on exports will be gradual and begin to tell after some days.''

The Department of Petroleum Resources said Monday that managers would fill in for striking workers and vowed that the oil would continue to flow.

''We have sent out management staff to the various terminals, depots and jetties to handle the jobs left by the strikers. There'll be no disruption of services as far as the management is concerned,'' said Belema Osibodu, an agency spokeswoman.

Strikers are demanding more than a year's worth of back pay, including unpaid overtime, and expenses and travel allowances. They are also demanding greater autonomy and better financing for the department, which they say is crippled by inefficient bureaucracy.

President Olusegun Obasanjo's energy advisor, Rilwanu Lukman, offered to meet with the strikers Feb. 25, according to union officials. But strikers rejected the proposal, saying it did not reflect the urgency of their demands.

The government said it offered some concessions to the striking workers, including payment of rent subsidies, ''but it doesn't look like that has been enough to make them call off the strike,'' Osibodu said.