Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum said on Wednesday he was concerned by a strike by staff at the state oil company over a restructuring that will see it split into five divisions, and would meet trade unions to resolve the dispute.

“We are going to have a meeting with them right now. I don’t want the industry shut down – I am going now to resolve the issues very soon,” Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said, adding that planned changes were merely a “reorganisation”.

Two oil unions, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, shut down NNPC operations nationwide today, to protest the unbundling of the NNPC into seven separate, autonomous units.

The strike, has worsened petrol shortage in many parts of Nigeria.

In a press conference today, Kachikwu explained that the NNPC has not been unbundled contrary to the fears of workers of the Corporation.

Kachikwu, former executive of Exxon-Mobil Oil who was appointed the Group Managing Director of NNPC and later, also appointed the Minister of State for Petroleum by President Buhari late year had embarked on reforms designed to transform the company into profit making entity.

The Minister told journalists in Abuja on Tuesday that the President has approved a new, profit driven structure for the organisation with the creation of seven units from the oil behemoth.

The Minister said five of the seven operational units would be strictly business-driven in line with global best practices.

He listed the new units to include those for Upstream, Downstream, Gas and Power, Refineries, Ventures, Corporate Planning and Services, and Finance and Accounts.

He said each of the units would be headed by Chief Executive Officers whose appointments, he said President Muhammadu Buhari who is also the Minister of Petroleum has approved.

He listed the new CEOs as Bello Rabiu for Upstream; Henry Ikem-Onih for Downstream; Anibor Kragha (Refineries); Saudu Mohammed (Gas and Power), while Babatunde Adeniran takes charge of Ventures.

He was emphatic that the restructuring will not lead to job losses during the press conference. But workers of NNPC seemed not convinced.

According to him, unlike before, the job of the new CEOs will no longer be merely administrative, but will now be saddled with the task of ensuring that their operations are run profitably.

The unions however did not believe him. PENGASSAN through its acting General Secretary, Comrade Lumumba Okugbawa in a statement released on Wednesday said the plan to unbundle the NNPC announced by Kachikwu, amounts to policy somersault on the part of the government.

Apart from driving investors away from the Nigeria oil industry, PENGASSAN said government did not take into consideration the existing law that established the NNPC before planning to unbundle the corporation.