Women seize more oil plants

2002-07-17 23:21

Lagos - Nigerian women have seized control of four more oil pumping stations in the vicinity of an oil terminal occupied by protesters since last week, police said on Wednesday.

National police spokesperson Haz Iwendi said between 200 and 300 women from the Ijaw-speaking community took over pumping stations owned by US oil giant ChevronTexaco last week.

"Negotiations between local leaders, the police and Chevron are going on. We hope to have ended the problem within two or three days," he said.

A Chevron spokesperson had earlier been unable to confirm the latest seizures, which were reported 10 days after hundreds of local women took control of the firm's Escravos oil terminal.

But an engineer who was evacuated from Escravos at the weekend said in Lagos that because of the protests the four stations had been stripped of all but a handful of staff and had shut down.

Iwendi said the pumping stations were "in the same general district" as Escravos, which is in Delta State some 320km east of Lagos, but that the protests were separate.

The women are demanding that Chevron invest in and provide jobs for impoverished village communities lying near its oil facilities.

Chevron and the Delta State government have said they were close to reaching a deal with the Escravos protesters, who on Sunday began to allow hundreds of trapped oil workers to leave the site. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA