ABUJA, July 14 (Reuters) - The Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) has fired 850 workers, many of them from
refineries, amidst the coronavirus pandemic, an oil union said
on Tuesday.
The workers are both skilled and unskilled contractors,
including technicians who helped maintain Nigeria's oil
refineries, said Lumumba Okugbawa, general secretary of the
Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria
(PENGASSAN), speaking on the phone.
The NNPC did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.
Layoffs in Nigeria's oil sector are a tense issue, with
frequent stand-offs between the NNPC and unions. Nigeria is
dependent on crude sales to prop up its struggling economy, now
at risk of its worst recession in four decades due to the
coronavirus and the pandemic tanking global oil prices.
Yet Nigeria's refineries are barely operational. Almost all
of the country's fuel supply is processed overseas at great
cost, despite Nigeria being Africa's largest crude producer.
In May, the NNPC said it had more than 6,600 staff.