The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has stopped the monthly salaries of the engineers sacked in September during its face-off with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria.

In a bid to address this, PENGASSAN said it is engaging the Dangote Group to resolve the matter amicably instead of resorting to another industrial action.

Findings by The PUNCH revealed that the salaries were halted following the refusal of many of the engineers to accept their redeployment to Zamfara, Borno, Benue, and Sokoto states, among others.

Some of the workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, had earlier said individuals were sent to a coal mine in Benue, concrete road construction sites in Borno and Ebonyi states, as well as rice plants in Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, and Zamfara.

While a few workers were said to have accepted the redeployment, many rejected it, relying on assurances from PENGASSAN that the crisis would be resolved through dialogue.

It was learnt that the Dangote Group issued a warning signal in October by slashing the wages of the affected workers before withholding their November salaries completely.

A senior official of the Dangote Group confirmed to our correspondent that the company would no longer continue paying those who rejected the redeployment offers.

While the affected workers described the non-payment of their salaries as “victimisation”, the official, who did not want his name in print due to the lack of authorisation to speak on the matter, wondered why the company should keep paying individuals who had refused the alternative placements offered.

“Those whose services were terminated were given an opportunity to work in our other projects, such as rice mills, concrete road construction, and coal mines.

All those who accepted have started working.

“If a newspaper terminates the services of an employee, and if it even goes out of its way to provide alternative employment, but the employee is not interested in availing the alternative employment, will it keep paying his/her salary?” the official said.

Recall that PENGASSAN had shut down oil and gas facilities in September over allegations that 800 refinery workers were fired for volunteering to be members of the union. However, the Dangote refinery said it only sacked a few workers who were sabotaging the facility, describing the exercise as a reorganisation.

The shutdown caused nationwide losses in oil and gas production and contributed to a drop in power generation until the Federal Government intervened and directed the redeployment of the affected workers.

In October, the sacked engineers were invited to pick up their letters at the Ikeja office of the Dangote Group. One of the letters sighted by our correspondent was titled ’Offer of Trainee Engagement’ and carried the letterhead of Dangote Projects Limited.

It reads partly: “Based on your performance at the assessment and subsequent interviews held with you, we are pleased to engage you as Engineer Trainee (Mechanical Engineering) for the coal project we are executing at Okpokwu, Benue State. This engagement shall be subject to the following conditions: You will report to your work location within 14 days upon receipt of this letter.

“You will undergo classroom training and hands-on training in the construction, commissioning, and operation of our Coal Project at Okpokwu, Benue State. Your training will be for a period of two years, and it will be reviewed periodically. You will be required to submit reports on your learning and progress. The objective of the training is to impart to you skills and to enable you to take up a position of responsibility in the organisation.”

Many of the engineers expressed concerns about the posting, especially to places perceived to be security hot spots. “The issue with the re-employment is that, firstly, there’s no address to report to on that letter. No office to report to in the states we were posted to. Secondly, those are security hot zones.

“Thirdly, in the letter, it is stated that if you don’t report within 14 days, your employment will be terminated, but no office location was given, and they don’t exist when we checked on Google Maps. So, if we accept the letters, we are basically terminating our employment by ourselves because there’s no office in those states to report to. PENGASSAN has basically told us not to accept the letters. We should let them continue with their talks,” they told The PUNCH.

Speaking during a briefing last week, the PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, said the union was still engaging the Dangote refinery to have the issues resolved.

Osifo said, “Since our last national industrial action, we have been engaging them in a lot of conversations, but the issues are not fully resolved. There are still a lot of pending issues. The NEC decided that, yes, let us still continue that process by pushing those issues by engaging in a dialogue to resolve the issues, and by also engaging all our social partners and stakeholders to get the issues resolved. And we hope and pray that these issues will be resolved at the table.

“These issues should be resolved in mere jaw-jaw so that we will not go back to Egypt. But as PENGASSAN, you know, we don’t shy away from doing what is right. But our preference is to get the subject resolved over the negotiation table.”

A senior management officer told our correspondent on Sunday that PENGASSAN had the right to make its requests, but the company also had the liberty to make decisions that suited its business.

“They (PENGASSAN) have their privilege to ask. We can’t deny the opportunity to anyone to ask anything they wish. But we, too, have the privilege to state what we want,” the official said.

Some of the engineers lamented the turn of events. They disclosed that there was “an agreement that they would send us to oil and gas companies owned by Dangote.”

According to them, it was initially agreed that their salaries would be paid until the issue was resolved.

“But we noticed a reduction in our October salaries. We were not paid for November when others have been paid. That’s clear victimisation. It was agreed that Dangote would keep paying us until the matter is resolved, but it seems they have breached the agreement already,” they said.

As the stalemate lingers, the affected engineers said they are now caught between losing their livelihoods and accepting deployments they consider unsafe and irregular, while PENGASSAN continues to push for a negotiated settlement to prevent another nationwide shutdown.

With both sides holding firmly to their positions, the resolution of the dispute now hangs on the outcome of ongoing engagements between the union and the Dangote Group.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has serviced part of its $3bn forward-sale loan from the African Export-Import Bank with crude oil worth N991bn in 2024, according to its 2024 financial statement report. The repayment was tied to Project Gazelle, a forward crude oil supply agreement signed in 2023.

On August 17, 2023, The PUNCH reported that the NNPC announced it had secured a $3.3bn emergency loan to repay crude oil obligations from Afreximbank. It explained that the loan would be used by the oil company to support the Federal Government in stabilising Nigeria’s exchange rate.

“The NNPC Ltd. and AFREXIM bank have jointly signed a commitment letter and Termsheet for an emergency $3bn crude oil repayment loan,” NNPC said in a statement.

“The signing, which took place today at the bank’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, will provide some immediate disbursement that will enable the NNPC Ltd. to support the Federal Government in its ongoing fiscal and monetary policy reforms aimed at stabilising the exchange rate market,” it added.

Under the deal, NNPC committed to deliver 90,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Production Sharing Contract assets to back a funding facility. According to the 2023 financial statement, a drawdown of $2.25bn had already been achieved by 31st December 2023, with principal repayment scheduled to begin in June 2024.

The funding carried an interest rate of 3-month LIBOR plus 6.5 per cent, with a 6 per cent margin and 0.5 per cent liquidity premium.

According to the 2024 financial statement, the drawdown on the facility had reached N4.9tn out of a total available N5.1tn, while N991bn worth of crude oil had been lifted in repayment, leaving an outstanding balance of N3.8tn at the end of 2024.

The report read, “In December 2023, NNPC Limited entered into a forward sale agreement with Project Gazelle Funding Limited to supply 90,000 bbl. of crude oil per day from Production Sharing Contract Assets for the settlement of a 5-year N2.7tn funding.

“The funding was utilised by the company to finance an advance payment of future taxes and royalty obligations due to the federation on PSC assets managed by the Company on behalf of the Federation.

“As at 31st December 2024, a drawdown of N4.9tn has been achieved from the initial facility of N5.1tn. The interest rate for the facility is 3-month SOFA plus 6.5 per cent while the margin and Liquidity Premium of 0.5 per cent respectively. A total value of Crude Oil worth N991bn has been lifted with a balance of N3.8tn as at 31st December 2024.”

The repayment was made between June and December 2024. However, NNPC did not disclose the identity of the offtakers or exact delivery volumes fulfilled in 2024.

The Project Gazelle arrangement has become one of NNPC’s most significant forward-sale financing vehicles, following a trend of oil-backed loans designed to shore up government revenues, refinance legacy debts, and meet budgetary obligations amid limited fiscal buffers.

The PUNCH earlier reported that the NNPC Ltd is burdened with crude-backed loan obligations estimated at N8.07tn.

The liabilities stretch across multiple forward-sale and project-financing arrangements that are expected to be serviced through substantial crude oil and gas deliveries. The commitments have become a major pillar of NNPCL’s funding structure following years of fiscal pressure, volatile crude production, and declining upstream investment.

Several of the facilities were used to refinance older debts, fund refinery rehabilitation, support cash flow, and meet government revenue obligations.

When assessed together, the company’s major crude-for-loan facilities—Eagle Export Funding (21,000 bpd), Project Yield (67,000 bpd), Project Leopard (35,000 bpd), and Project Gazelle (90,000 bpd)—represent a combined commitment of 213,000 barrels per day, in addition to separate gas-delivery obligations under the NLNG arrangement.

The volume equates to a sizeable share of Nigeria’s daily crude output, underscoring the long-term implications of these arrangements for government revenue, export allocation, and operational flexibility.

The PUNCH also reported that Nigeria’s gross profit from crude oil and gas sales plunged by N824.66bn in 2024 despite a rebound in oil production, according to figures from the Budget Implementation Report for the fourth quarter of 2024 released by the Budget Office of the Federation.

Data from the report revealed that gross profit from crude and gas sales fell to N1.08tn during the year, from N1.90tn in 2023, representing a 43.32 per cent decline.

The Chief Executive Officer of AHA Strategies and oil and gas expert, Mr Ademola Adigun, earlier linked Nigeria’s declining oil earnings to opaque crude-for-cash agreements and undisclosed loan repayments that have tied up part of the country’s crude output.

He said some of the government’s oil barrels were already committed to debt settlements and forward-sale contracts, reducing the actual volume that brought fresh revenue into the Federation Account.

Adigun said, “Some of our crude is already tied up in loan agreements. The problem is that Nigeria doesn’t know the full details of these transactions because there’s little transparency around them.”

He explained that several crude-backed projects, such as Project Gazelle, were carried out without proper public disclosure or parliamentary scrutiny.

He added that the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative should strengthen its audits to determine how much of the country’s crude is being used for debt repayment or swap transactions.

punch.ng

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