Nigeria’s energy unions cry wolf as markets dismiss threat

The energy market has grown increasingly dismissive of Nigeria’s oil and gas unions and their seemingly empty threats to shut in the county’s energy exports

At the end of last week, the white-collar Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (Pengassan) and the blue-collar Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (Nupeng) threatened to join a general strike called in response to the federal government’s decision to scrap fuel subsidies. Pengassan claimed that, had it carried out its threat, it would have cut 2.3 million barrels a day (b/d) of crude exports. With Bonny Light crude trading at $115 a barrel, the shut in would have seen Nigeria’s federal government lose about $264.5 million a day of oil revenue. A country-wide production shut-in would also have cut gas output and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Nige