Shell Gabon Loses 90,000 Barrels Per Day to Workers Strike

Shell Gabon, the country’s second leading oil producer (60,000 per day), is loosing a daily 90,000 barrels to its workers’ strike that began last 19 March.

The strike, Shell Gabon’s longest ever - with the first lasting three days in 2006 - is negatively impacting other petroleum outfits such as Total Gabon, Perenco, Marathon, which transport 30,000 barrels a day via the Shell Gamba terminal, located in south-western Gabon.

The strike is continuing though it has prompted daily losses estimated at billions of CFA francs in light of the high price of crude oil.

“Negotiations are still underway and therefore the strike continues,” Secretary general of the National Organization of Petroleum Employees (ONEP), Guy Roger Wora, told APA.

He noted that production is at a standstill in Shell’s major oil fields of Rabi and Toucan.

Wora said the resumption of work is conditioned to fulfilling the trade union’s preliminary demands, especially the resignation of the chief executive officer, Netherland’s Hans Bakker, and some of his immediate assistants accused of entertaining an unhealthy working atmosphere.

Once these basic demands are fulfilled, ONEP could order the resumption of work while pursuing negotiations on the other items in the book of demands, he noted.

The union demands the enforcement of a ministerial order dated 2007 defining working and pay conditions in certain oil sites.

They are especially demanding that the Gamba site be classified as oil site for its workers to receive various allowances including the payment of overtime.

The union also wants the management to stop witch-hunting and grant early retirement to all the workers declared officially ill as well as their holiday allowances for 2006 and 2007.

The management and the strikers Wednesday held heated negotiations until late at night at the Libreville-based seat of the mines ministry.

The talks resumed Thursday and will continue through Friday at the labor ministry premises, Wora added.

At a press conference here Thursday, Shell Gabon’s CEO described the situation as “very serious for all the partners, employees, service providers and even the government”.

“Production is at a standstill,” he lamented, denying the allegations leveled against him and his assistants.

Bakker said the entire non-striking staff was removed from the production sites for security reasons, lamenting that minimum service is not clearly defined in the Gabonese industrial sector.

On his part, technical director François Ntombo Tsibah told a press conference at the company headquarters the strike will continue to impact the company’s results days after work resumes.

“Production will stand below the normal level after the resumption of work,” he said, adding that it will take time for the oil fields to regain the required rates.

Source African Press Agency

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