By Bassey Udo
All parties in the raging rift between Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited and oil workers should find a common ground to dialogue and amicably resolve their dispute, the Commission Chief Executive (CCE) of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Engr. Gbenga Komolafe, has advised.
In the last three weeks, the management of the refinery has been waging a running battle with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) over plans by its workers to establish chapters and formalise their membership of the unions.
While the company’s management described such an attempt by the workers to join the unions as a gross violation of their terms of employment, the PENGASSAN and NUPENG alleged victimization, claiming that denying their members the right to join the unions violates their constitutional right to freedom of association.
In the heat of the face-off, Dangote Refinery ordered the dismissal of some of the Nigerian workers as part of its total reorganization exercise following alleged sabotage of the operations in sections of the refinery.
PENGASSAN demanded the company to immediately reinstate the dismissed workers, or risk an industrial action against the company.
Although the company said it reviewed its position by asking the affected workers to reapply for fresh employment, while committing to a code of conduct for its workforce, PENGASSAN rejected the company’s directive, accusing the management of intimidation, discrimination and victimization of its members.
Although the company denied its action was punitive, PENGASSAN on Friday proceeded to direct its members to immediately cut gas supply to Dangote Refinery, shut down all valves supplying crude oil to the plant, while products loading operations from the company should be halted till further notice.
But reacting to the chain of actions and reactions by the company and the oil workers, Komolafe, while appearing as guest on Arise Television programme on Saturday, urged all parties to embrace dialogue and find a common ground to resolve the dispute in the overall interest of the country.
He said although the dispute was on issues affecting the downstream and midstream sectors of the petroleum industry, there was need for Dangote Refinery and the oil workers to find an amicable resolution of their differences to avoid the disruption of energy supply across the country.
“Regardless of the fact that the issues involved are purely midstream and downstream affairs, our take as the regulatory authority in the upstream sector of the petroleum industry is that all parties should refrain from what will cause a disruption in energy supply in the country.
“We believe that the issues involved are issues that parties can actually sit down, discuss, and reach an amicable solution for the good of the country,” Komolafe said.
The CCE used the platform to comment on the successes recorded by the Commission in combating crude oil losses in the country through the use of both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches.
He highlighted the significant reduction in the monetary value of crude oil losses, attributing the improvement to new strategies implemented by the NUPRC.
Underlining the importance of protecting the integrity of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, the CCE pointed out that negative narratives like incidents of pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft could deter potential investors.
The NUPRC boss explained that President Tinubu’s directives to security agencies and the Commission had reduced crude oil losses by about 90 percent between 2021 – when the Commission was established – and today.
He explained that a set of kinetic and non-kinetic measures were adopted to curb the menace of crude oil theft in the country resulting in improved industry output capacity in recent times.
For the non-kinetic method, he said the Commission introduced two regulations designed to complement the general security architecture, including the upstream measurement regulation and the advanced cargo declaration regulation.
He described the regulations as pioneering initiatives in Nigeria’s over 70 years of oil and gas exploration and development, adding that for the first time, Nigeria now has regulations capable of tracking every molecule of crude oil loaded from its terminals to the discharge point.
“So, the Commission has intuitively put in place these two regulations designed to be implemented in two phases.
He said the first phase relating to the approval by the Federal Executive Council in respect of the Engineering Metering Audit has already been implemented, adding that an engineering integrity assessment of all the metering facilities that have been in operation for decades was long overdue.
Komolafe said the Commission’s objective was to change the trajectory from the past where international oil companies were the ones informing Nigerians of the quantities of crude oil exported, to ensure that was done on a real-time basis.
Explaining further, the CCE said the first phase, which was the establishment of a statutory regulatory framework, was achieved in accordance with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
“The first phase, which was to carry out the integrity of the metering devices, was conducted in almost 700 points in the upstream sector of the industry,” he disclosed.
On the Advanced Cargo Declaration regulation, the NUPRC boss explained that the objective was to ensure that every molecule of crude loaded from Nigeria’s terminals was tracked digitally and in real time, up to the discharge point.
“We want to track every barrel of crude that is loaded in a tanker so that if a tanker loads one million barrels of crude oil, it will end up discharging 1.2 million barrels of crude oil, and the Commission will instantly be able to flag it, because the system will be able to flag that the tanker is discharging above the permitted volume,” Komolafe said.
