Oil Workers Reject Shell’s $2.4bn Assets Sale, Declare Strike Notice

Oil and gas sector workers have rejected the planned sale of Shell onshore assets, claiming the group being speculated to buy up the assets is unknown to it.

Speaking under the aegis of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), the workers said the purported group is an assemblage of unknown entities with no proven track record of managing such diverse assets.

The association said it has consequently put its members nationwide on strike notice over the matter.

PENGASSAN’s general secretary, Lumumba Okugbawa, in a statement titled “Position of on the planned sale of Shell Onshore Assets”, alleged that “one of the companies that made up the assemblage has a history of subjugating workers and subjecting them to untold hardship, as exemplified in the current management of OML 34.”

The statement reads, “The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) attention has been brought to the press release announcing the intended sale of Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited (SPDC) onshore assets to the Renaissance group.

“A group of consortiums consisting of ND Western Limited, Aradel Holdings Pic. The Petrolin Group, FIRST Exploration and Petroleum Development Company Limited and the Waltersmith Group.

“Our Shell/SNBO Branch of PENGASSAN has further communicated all subsequent information presented to our members by Shell Management on the planned sale.

“Having appraised the situation, reviewed the presentation and carried out preliminary findings, we wish to state as follows: The group is unknown to us and thus it’s an assemblage of unknown entities with no proven track record in managing such diverse assets.

“We reject without equivocation all the terms affecting employees that were communicated in the presentation to our members.

“One of the companies that made up the assemblage has a history of subjugating workers and subjecting them to untold hardship, as exemplified in the current management of OML 34.

“Another company in the group has a penchant for preventing workers from unionising and thus stiffening their condition of services.

“Any attempt to transfer the assets without resolving issues affecting our members will be met with the stiffest resistance the industry has ever witnessed.

“The group must come clean with its intention(s) and be ready to have serious engagement with the Association and not the jamboree that Shell Management is currently engaging in.

“We have communicated to our Shell/SNBO Branches not to be distracted but to focus on the CBA negotiation that is due about a week from now.

“The industry regulator, Joint Venture, JV, Asset partners (NNPC, Non-Operated Asset Partners) and other stakeholders are hereby put on notice.”