…Speaks on recent activities at Amukpe and Sapele facilities by Contractor Personnel
Some community indigenes working as contractors’ personnel invaded Seplat facilities at Amukpe and Sapele west locations, disrupting production activities and subsequently forcing a brief halt to business activities, including a declaration of force majeure to affected customers. Through stakeholder engagements and collaboration with the Government, the disruption has been resolved and normal operations have resumed.
Seplat Energy made it known that its contractor personnel are encouraged to make their grievances known (if any) through their managing contractors or designated Seplat officials, or otherwise leverage established third-party mediation channels. We are actively looking into why these individuals opted for a disruptive action without recourse to established procedures and with no concern or regard for public safety and national interest (our Seplat West facilities supply about 37 percent of the gas used for power generation in the country).
“Our stakeholder engagements continue. We have established through a meeting with the contractors’ personnel, security agencies and Okpe Host Communities Forum leaders that the disruption was due to the individuals’ demands for salary increment and automatic conversion to regular staff. The contractors managing these individuals have been notified of their actions, and we understand that plans were underway to implement a salary increment for their personnel before the incident occurred.”
The company emphasised that during the invasion of its facilities, it ensured the safety and security of its staff which is always primary priority. All production staff are safe, and no injury or harm was recorded.
Seplat Energy continuously strives to ensure best practice in the management of personnel provided to it by third party service providers, including regular engagements on their grievances. These service providers will continue to engage their personnel and amicably address the concerns raised by them.
“We would like to appreciate the support from our community leaders and the government security agencies in working together with Seplat Energy to efficiently manage the situation, prevent any HSE incident and promptly restore normal operations. As part of our continuous improvement initiatives, we are maintaining an open line of communication with all concerned parties and in the coming weeks, we will complete a post-mortem and extract critical lessons-learned to strengthen our operations and prevent any recurrence.”
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