IBADAN, Nigeria (Dow Jones)--A second day of negotiations failed Tuesday to end the Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, or MPN, workers' strike, a senior labor union official told Dow Jones Newswires.
But the talks are to resume again Wednesday. Top officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp, or NNPC, brokered the negotiations between the workers` union, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, or Pengassan, and Mobil management in Abuja.
"No progress was made at the talks. We are convening again tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow we can make progress," George-Olumoroti Olusola, Mobil branch chairman of Pengassan, said Tuesday. NNPC intervened to end the strike, which began Thursday, by attempting negotiations Monday and Tuesday. Already MPN`s crude oil production of about 866,000 barrels a day and its exports have stopped as a result of the strike.
Pengassan workers commenced the strike following the breakdown of negotiations with the oil company over their demands for adequate compensation of its members, commensurate with productivity. The workers said other issues related to their pension, the influx of expatriates to do jobs that could be performed by local staff and failure by MPN to replace obsolete oil and gas facilities should be resolved before the strike is called off.
Abubakar Yar`Adua, NNPC's group managing director, urged the workers and MPN management to make compromises to end the strike and stem further losses in crude oil production. MPN, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) is the second-largest oil company in Nigeria after Shell. It has already given notice of force majeure as a result of the strike. Militants attacked a Shell facility Thursday, forcing the company to shut in 169,000 barrels a day.
Before the latest attack on that Shell facility, Odein Ajumogobia, Nigeria's oil minister, said the country`s crude oil production had declined to around 2.2 million barrels a day, below its Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' quota of 2.205 million barrels a day. Ajumogobia said 500,000 barrels a day was inaccessible because of security issues in the Niger Delta.
-By Obafemi Oredein; Dow Jones Newswires; 234 2 7510489
(END) Dow Jones Newswires