Nigerian oil workers expected to shut down industry, protest privitization

The result--plus a possible cut in Iranian oil production to protest scrutiny over its nuclear program--could send oil prices above $75/bbl over the next three months.



http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200508230366.html

Oil Workers Okay Plot to Shut Refineries

Vanguard (Lagos)
NEWS
August 23, 2005
Posted to the web August 23, 2005

By Victor Ahiuma-Young & Hector Igbikiowubo
Lagos

A TOTAL shut down of refineries and petro-chemical companies in the country looks imminent this weekend, as the nation's oil workers have begun the process of shutting down the refineries and petro-chemical companies to protest alleged government's un-procedural and unilateral actions in the planned privatisation of the refineries.

...

President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Comrade Uche Okoro, told Vanguard yesterday that the decision to shut the oil plants followed the deadlock reached at meetings between the leadership of the oil workers and government to find amicable solution to the crisis in the oil sector.


...

"As responsible people, we have to alert Nigerians as well as stop them. We are talking about national assets that were not built by this government. The assets belong to all of us, all our children and those un-born. They must not be sold off as we are selling akara or bread."

Mr Okoro last week alleged that Eleme Petro-Chemical Company which is worth over $2.4 billion was slated to be sold at a meagre $200 million, an amount he said, was less than what was required for the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) that would be due next year.

Nothing.

I have only been half-listening, but NPR seems to be very out of character in that they're making the people of Nigeria who want a little bit of the value of their natural resources to go to the people of Nigeria sound reasonable.

Normally, NPR wouldn't say anything that doesnt' make the corporatocracy the hero of the story.

Has anyone else been listening?