Lagos (Platts)--28Jun2007

A committee set up by the Nigerian Senate on last week's general strike
has said it would conduct a public hearing on the sale of the government's
share of two oil refineries to private investors, according to Thisday
newspaper Thursday.

     The Senate decision came a day after the House of Representatives
rejected a motion to probe the sale of government's 51% stakes in the Port
Harcourt and Kaduna refineries, a review President Umaru Yar'Adua had promised
to labor unions when negotiating to end the four-day strike that crippled the
country.

     The six-member Senate committee at its first sitting in the capital Abuja
on Wednesday decided to invite for questioning the state privatization agency,
the Bureau of Public Enterprises and the state-owned Nigerian National
Petroleum Corp. on the sale of the refineries to Bluestar Oil Services just
days before former president Olusegun Obasanjo stepped down from power on May
29, 2007.

     "We want to be clear on these issues and one of the ways to go is to
invite the general public and the stakeholders in the sectors concerned to
come and lay the facts on the table," This day quoted a member of the committee
as saying.