Oil Prices Break $50 A Barrel Mark


Nigeria workers general strike threat

WORLD OIL prices continue to rise with the price of US light crude breaking
the $50 a barrel mark for a period last week – its highest price for 21 years.

The inexorable rise in oil prices reflects the capitalists’ concerns over
the security of supplies and increases in demand for the commodity from
‘booming’ China. Also, the recent spate of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico
has led to a short-term disruption of supplies

The intensifying insurgency in Iraq, where oil pipelines and installations
are frequently targeted by guerrillas, is adversely affecting supplies. Now,
an indigenous rebel group in the oil -producing Niger delta area of Nigeria is
threatening to attack installations. In response, Shell and Agip have
evacuated ‘non-essential workers’.

Moreover, Nigeria’s Obasanjo government has again allowed companies to
increase domestic fuel prices – this time up by 25%. Similar price hikes led
to two general strikes this year by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), in
which members of the Democratic Socialist Movement – the Socialist Party’s
Nigerian counterpart – played a key role. The NLC has threatened another
general strike beginning on 11 October.

The latest price increase followed a ruling by the Federal High Court
making it illegal for the NLC to call a general strike.

This court ruling came after anti-union legislation was passed by the
federal parliament outlawing picketing and making it illegal for workers in
so-called essential services to strike.