LAGOS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian oil workers in the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) on Thursday vowed to shut down Nigeria's 21 crude oil export terminals by Feb. 11, 2009 over management's suspected corruption activities.

    The Lagos-based Punch newspaper reported Friday that the workers claimed that Nigeria's Minister of Petroleum, Rilwanu Lukman, had interest in a foreign firm of Cobalt Services Nigeria Limited.

    They demanded the termination of the contract between the Nigerian federal government and the foreign company as the only condition for dropping their threat.

    The statement was spoken at a press conference in Abuja shortly after the joint executive council meeting of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (PENGASSAN) of the DPR branch.

    Cobalt began work on Jan. 1, 2009 and is to earn 0.1 percent fee on every barrel of crude oil exported, the newspaper reported.     

    It was learnt that the inspection bill amounted to 87,400 U.S. dollars daily or the value of 693,500 barrels per year of crude oil, while Nigerian federal government would end up paying 31.9 million dollars annually to Cobalt based on a conservative price of 46 dollars per barrel.

    The Chairman of PENGASSAN, DPR branch, Aniekan Jonny Akpan, said the minister appointed the company even when it was suspected that it lacked the necessary expertise to carry out the job.

    He also said the services provided the firm already performed a duplication of the functions by the DPR.

    According to him, the workers had earlier given government a 21-day ultimatum, which expired on Thursday, noting that the decision to extend the deadline was because of their concern not to cause further hardship on the general public that was already agitated over developments in the oil sector.