* Civil unrest over police brutality has heightened tensions
* Hundreds of announced job cuts add to security worries
* Local group says it expects more cuts due to low oil price
* Some oil-producing states have more than 40% unemployment
By Tife Owolabi and Libby George
PORT HARCOURT/LAGOS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Oil companies have
asked security services to tighten surveillance as violent
anti-police brutality protests and the expected sacking of
hundreds of workers worsen desperation in the region, industry
sources told Reuters.
Already unemployment is above 40% in Nigeria's energy
regions and observers say further job losses could aggravate
problems of pipeline tapping, illegal oil refining and pirate
attacks.
Three sources close to the companies, speaking on condition
of anonymity, told Reuters the majors had asked for tougher
surveillance, and non-government organisations said crime was a
risk.
"It's going to increase the desperation in the region, which
leads to criminality," said Ken Henshaw, executive director at
Port Harcourt-based NGO We The People.
Oil major Chevron plans to cut 25% of its Nigeria workforce,
which IndustriALL Global Union said included 1,000 jobs.
Already, the oil companies do not provide enough jobs to
satisfy employment needs in the region, which has few other
industries.
STRIKE THREAT
Union PENGASSAN has threatened strikes over 65 job cuts at
oil services firm Baker Hughes.
At the end of 2017, Chevron had 5,377 employees and
contractors in Nigeria. A spokesman did not provide an updated
figure or say if that had changed substantially. The Ijaw Youth Council, which represents local people, said
it expected thousands more cuts as other oil majors retrench.
Royal Dutch Shell RDSa.L and ExxonMobil XOM.N have
announced global job cuts, but said they do not know how many
would come in Nigeria. Eni ENI.MI did not comment. Total
TOTF.PA has not announced cuts, and said it had not reduced
wages in Nigeria. Oil union Pengassan said roughly 200,000 Nigerians work in
oil and gas. The unions are fighting all of the cuts.
Nigeria's unemployment reached 30% in the second quarter,
and oil-producing Akwa Ibom and Rivers states had the second and
third highest total nationwide, at 45.2% and 43.7%,
respectively. Across the four main oil-producing states, some
4.8 million were unemployed in the second quarter.
Protests against police brutality also exploded into riots
and looting last month, and in parts of the Delta, police
stopped leaving their barracks because of the anger, Henshaw and
the three other sources said.
Groups of armed local residents patrolled instead. A police
spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Oil theft cost Africa's largest oil exporter $1.35 billion
in the first half of 2019, while pirate kidnappings in the Gulf
of Guinea account for 95% of the global total.
Eurasia Group, Henshaw and Patterson Ogun, founding director
of the Ijaw Council for Human Rights, said locals were unlikely
to blow up pipelines. But Henshaw and Ogun said some would tap
them to sell oil or make money refining it.
"The communities are just looking to take care of
themselves," Ogun said.
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Unemployment in Nigeria's Delta https://tmsnrt.rs/3ltyzxc
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