Striking oil
workers in Gabon stopped the African country’s estimated 240,000
barrels of daily crude oil production, a union official told Reuters on
Saturday. “We can confirm tonight that all production has been halted,”
said Arnaud Engandji, spokesman for the ONEP oil workers’ union, which
wants more local workers in the sector.
Gabon is Africa’s
seventh largest oil producer. Gabon’s government late last year agreed
to trade union demands to limit foreign workers in its oil sector to 10
percent and to require all executive posts to be held by Gabonese, but
never ratified the law.
