By Mike Oduniyi in Lagos and Juliana Taiwo in Abuja, 03.31.2005

Both the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) have therefore, insisted on going ahead with the strike planned for April 11.
Yesterday's meeting had been initiated by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity to address the grievances of the oil workers, which centred on influx of expatriate workers into the sector, casualisation and deduction of workers’ salary for pension purpose.
THISDAY checks revealed that the meeting had in attendance representatives of Shell Petroleum Development Company, ChevronTexaco, Mobil Producing Nigeria, Transocean, as well as Belbop and Conoil, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Immigration and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
NUPENG President, Comrade Peter Akpatason, had said for instance that the representatives of Conoil/Belbop, did not appear to have the mandate to commit their employer to decisions that would be reached at the meeting.
Akpatason told the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Timiebi Agary Koripamo, the converner of the meeting, that continuing with the meeting would be an exercise in futility and that he, alongside his other colleagues, would rather leave the meeting.
He said the decision stemmed from past experiences where agreements from such meetings over the same issues were not enforceable because representatives of the affected companies had no mandate to commit their employers.
Also in his remark in support of Akpatason, PENGASSAN President, Dr. Louis Brown Ogbeifun, immediately told representatives of the oil workers at the meeting to vacate their seats since the management of the affected companies have not considered them
serious enough to discuss with them.
Said he: "We think that at this juncture this meeting should end. At this juncture we have decided to take our future in our hands. It does appear that these people are not taking us serious.
"We are being treated like this because we have been too responsible. We have been too mature for the system and I think that by the time we start our actions we would be taken seriously," he said.
Following spirited efforts by the Permanent Secretary, the meeting could only address the issue of expatriate quotas while other issues like the privatisation and deregulation, redundancies, contract staffing, non-unionisation in Conoil Bell Bop and the Pension Acts §could not be addressed.
Ogbeifun later told THISDAY that a meeting between the management of Belbop/Conoil has been convened for next Monday, while another meeting with the other multinational oil companies will hold the following day.
"No agreement was reached, so our stand (on the strike) is still the same," said the PENGASSAN president.
The unions had accused Shell, Chevron, Mobil and Transocean of being chief culprits in the influx of expatriate workers in the industry.
The oil workers had vowed to shut down crude oil production for three days beginning April 11.
The Federal Government feared that the strike may further destabilise the international oil market, and consequently impact negatively on the nation's economy.
Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer is also the sixth largest in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with a daily average output of 2.5 million barrels.
Crude oil prices closed firm yesterday at the international market, with the May deliveries for the Brent crude traded at $53.12 per barrel on London's International Petroleum Exchange.