Nigerian oil union rescinds strike threat

LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigerian oil industry monitors said on Thursday they had shelved a planned strike after parliament pledged to address their demands.

The upper house Senate had invited the white-collar PENGASSAN oil workers union of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) for talks over a planned strike that could hit crude oil exports by the West African country.

"In agreeing to call off the strike, we want the Senate to impress on the DPR management to implement these decisions (reached at the meeting) because there is a lot of tension among our members," PENGASSAN said at the end of the talks held in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

The workers are demanding a 10 percent increase in salary, improved service conditions and removal of the head of the DPR.

PENGASSAN had threatened to call the workers out on strike if the demands were not met by its deadline of Friday.

Chairman of the senate committee on petroleum resources, Senator Abdulazeez Ibrahim said parliament would meet the head of the Petroleum Ministry and the DPR on the workers' demands.

"Give us more time to look into your matter. Let's have less strikes so as to be able to effectively address your demands," said Ibrahim.

He said parliament was working on a bill that will give autonomy and more powers to the DPR "which will pave way for the resolution of most problems in the industry."

The strike notice came barely two weeks after downstream oil workers downed tools over pay rise, which created fuel shortages in Africa's leading oil-producing country.

DPR workers supervise oil loadings at Nigeria's export terminals and a strike by them last March briefly disrupted the country's crude oil export loadings.

Nigeria, OPEC sixth largest exporter, produces more than 2 million barrels per day.

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