Officials from Nigeria's two leading oil workers' unions -- the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, known as Pengassan, and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers -- told Nigerian news sources this week that their concerns about the ongoing violence in the delta have not been adequately addressed by the federal government and that a strike would ensue on March 23 if they were not satisfied that leaders in Abuja were working toward improving the situation there.

The strike threat followed a weekend blast at a pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria. The explosion resulted in tens of thousands of lost barrels of production daily, according to Shell officials. While pipeline explosions are sometimes the result of illegal tapping, witnesses said the explosion near the Escravos Terminal was the result of sabotage by armed groups operating in the delta.

It's this type of violence that has NUPENG and Pengassan threatening government that its members are prepared to walk off the job.

"Concerning the situation in Niger Delta, we resolved that government had not done enough and we have been complaining about this for quite a long time, but unfortunately, our efforts have not yielded the desired results," NUPENG President Peter Akpatason said.

Union oil workers also have expressed concerns about plans to reform the petroleum sector. One of the most controversial changes would allow the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. to solicit private funds for investments in joint ventures with foreign energy firms, ending the longstanding policy that required the NNPC to ask the federal government directly for capital.

The reform heralded by Nigerian Oil Minister Rilwanu Lukman comes at a time when Nigeria is faced with production far below the 2 million-barrels-per-day mark, placing the industry second among African oil exporters behind Angola. With production estimated below 1.9 million bpd as recently as mid-January, oil output may have fallen even further.

Executives at Shell, the largest foreign petroleum operation in the country, have made similar claims regarding their fallen output since the onset of violence by militant groups like the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta at the end of 2005.

MEND and other armed groups claim their struggle is about achieving a fairer distribution of the country's oil wealth, though detractors condemn the militants and others for their alleged thuggery. Critics say the militants' only real objective is to illegally siphon oil from pipelines, a practice known as bunkering, and sell it on the international black market.

At a meeting between union leaders and government officials this week, Akpatason agreed and said changes are "not achievable now because the economic situation on ground does not support that."

"Deregulation is going to take more money from people, rather than give them more," he said.

Despite their balking about the proposed reforms and the violence, it is unlikely a long-term strike would ensue, said Mark Schroeder, a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Stratfor. He said the union workers could ill afford a prolonged work stoppage, nor would the workers want to draw attention to the little impact their absence would have on an industry already suffering from a diminished capacity.

"Even if they do go on strike, they would typically go on strike two or three days at most," Schroeder told United Press International.

In the meantime, as the deadline approaches, Schroeder said the unions and the government, along with military officials and leaders of the Joint Task Force for delta security, would have an opportunity to come to some sort of agreement on how to improve security in the ever-hostile region.

Whether any real improvement in delta security would result from those negotiations remains to be seen.

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