Norway oil drilling unions agree wage deal, averting strike action

Archer

17/06/2021 24:07

OSLO, June 17 (Reuters) - Three Norwegian labour unions
agreed on a wage deal with the owners of floating offshore oil
drilling rigs, preventing the outbreak of a strike that would
have disrupted exploration, the unions said on Thursday.
    The deal between the Norwegian Shipowners' Association and
the Industri Energi, Safe and DSO labour unions comprises more
than 8,200 workers, who will on average get a pay rise of 2.7%.
    Unions had said that some 1,076 workers on eight rigs would
go on strike initially if the talks failed, but would not
disrupt the current production of oil and gas.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N2NT298
    A strike could also have escalated within days, however,
thus potentially also impacting output at a later time.
    Rig owners that were at risk of a strike on Thursday were
Transocean  RIG.N , Odfjell Drilling  ODFJ.OL , Maersk Drilling
 DRLCO.CO , Archer  ARCHER.OL , Seadrill  SDRL.OL , Dolphin,
Rowan and KCA Deutag.
    Service providers ESS  CPG.L , NOC and Sodexo  EXHO.PA 
would also have been affected, according to the unions.
    Safe, Industri Energi and DSO negotiated on behalf of
workers on mobile offshore units as well as platform drilling
crews on permanent installations.
    A separate group of oil and gas production workers, who are
employed directly by oil firms, agreed to a wage deal last
month, thus preventing a larger strike with wider consequence
for production.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nO9N2JV022

 (Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche)
 ((terje.solsvik@thomsonreuters.com; +47 918 666 70))