Nigerian refinery accused of sacking union members is key to UK plan to tackle jet fuel shortage

A refinery in Nigeria accused of dismissing workers for joining a union has emerged as key to the UK government’s hopes of saving the summer holiday amid a jet fuel shortage. Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, said at the weekend that part of the answer to the strait of Hormuz crisis was to import more fuel from the US and west Africa. The main refinery on the west coast of Africa exporting fuel to the UK for commercial flights is Dangote in Lagos, which started producing aviation fuel in January 2024. According to the market data company Kpler, about 130,000 tonnes of jet fuel was imported into the UK in March from the huge Nigerian plant. Owned by reputedly the richest man in Africa , Aliko Dangote, the refinery has been accused by unions of being a “plantation of exploitation”. Last autumn, the Nigerian government had to mediate in a dispute when the company was accused of sacking workers after they had joined the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (Pengassan) union. It was alleged that more than 800 Nigerian workers had been fired after voluntarily joining the union and that some had been replaced with foreign nationals, mostly from India. This was denied by the company, which said a limited reorganisation had targeted a small number of workers who were disrupting operations and undermining the stability of the facility. …