The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) ‘s 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 Plc, 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, JV Asset partners (NNPCL, Non-Operated Asset Partners) and other stakeholders are hereby put on notice.
Comrade Lumumba. I. Okugbawa, Comrade Festus Osifo, General Secretary, PENGASSAN President, PENGASSAN
