NNPC Refinery Casual Staff Go Unpaid for 120 Days

Support staff at NNPC’s Warri refinery, a 125,000Barrels  Oil Per Stream Day BPSD facility, have not been paid for four months, Africa Oil+Gas Report (AOGR) has learnt.

Dafe Ighomitedo, the workers’ representative Reverend told AOGR that they last received their pay for March 2025.

AOGR approached NNPC spokesperson Aliyu Abubakar for comments. He did not respond.

The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), on behalf of the support staff, has issued a seven-day ultimatum to NNPC management to start talks, Ighomitedo continued.

Warri refinery was shut on January 25, 2025, having only restarted on December 30, 2024. NNPC said it had to carry out “necessary intervention works on select equipment, including field instruments that were impacting sustainable and steady operations”.

The company’s Group CEO, Bashir Bayo Ojulari, while addressing issues at a separate NNPC refinery on July 30, 2025, suggested that the Warri restart may have been “ill-informed and sub-commercial”. He had instituted a review of rehabilitation projects in NNPC refineries shortly after his appointment in April 2025. Warri saw the start of a $492Million quick-fix project in June 2022.

Casualised Warri refinery staff would not have supported the quick-fix project because of their poor terms of work, Ighomitedo told AOGR, “but in April 2022 NNPC management promised that when the refinery achieved a restart it would introduce an improved salary structure. NNPC management has not kept its promise of better pay since Warri’s restart in December 2024”, Ighomitedo continued.

NNPC refineries operated at less than 19% of their combined 445,000BOPD capacity between 2009–2019. Warri was shut in 2019 after several years of its operating losses and overhead costs attracting much criticism. NNPC responded to those criticisms partly through the casualisation of the Warri refinery workforce. Ighomitedo said that the support staff make up 69% of Warri’s workforce and have been protesting their low pay and lack of benefits since 2015.

COURTESY: africaoilgasreport