Gabon faces nationwide oil strike: union

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

LIBREVILLE (AFP) — An oil workers strike which has paralysed production at a Shell subsidiary in Gabon, west Africa, is set to become an industry-wide dispute, union officials warned Friday.

Industrial action at Shell's Gamba terminal has halted 60,000 barrels a day of crude production since the strike began on March 20, with another 30,000 barrels exported by France's Total Gabon and Perenco also on hold.

Now unions negotiating for staff at America's Marathon Oil, who account for a further 20,000 barrels per day, have issued a strike warning, calling for parent company employment contracts for intermediary staff, a union official said.

"We won't hesitate to use the only arms we have," a spokesman for the national petroleum workers union, Arnaud Engandji,...