Norway oil offshore workers set to go on strike on Tuesday, cutting output

Orron Energy AB

04/07/2022 09:55

By Gwladys Fouche
    OSLO, July 4 (Reuters) - Norwegian offshore workers will
likely go on strike on Tuesday in an industrial action that will
cut oil and gas output as the negotiating parties have not made
progress, the union and the lobby representing oil companies
said on Monday.
    "As it stands now, there will be a strike tonight," a
spokesman for the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association (NOG) told
Reuters. "The situation is quite locked ... No talks are
scheduled today." 
    Industrial action will begin at midnight local time (2200
GMT) at three fields - Gudrun, Oseberg South and Oseberg East - 
and will then expand at three other fields - Kristin, Heidrun
and Aasta Hansteen - from midnight on Wednesday.
    A seventh field, Tyrihans, will have to shut because its
output is processed from Kristin.
    By Tuesday, oil output would be cut by 89,000 barrels of oil
equivalent per day (boepd) and gas output by 27,500 boepd, or
4.4 mcm per day, Equinor has said.
    By Wednesday, a strike would cut the country's gas output by
292,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, or 13% of output, NOG
said on Sunday.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2YK0AQ
    Oil output would be cut by 130,000 barrels per day, the
lobby added, corresponding to around 6.5% of Norway's
production, according to a Reuters calculation.    
    "As things stand now, it looks like there will be a strike,"
Lederne leader Audun Ingvartsen told Reuters.
    The Norwegian government has said it was following the
conflict "closely". It can intervene to stop a strike if there
are exceptional circumstances.
    The strike, in which workers are demanding wage hikes to
compensate for rising inflation, comes amid high oil and gas
prices, with supplies of gas to Europe especially tight after
Russian export cutbacks.
    Members of the Lederne trade union, who represent senior
workers, on Thursday voted down a proposed wage agreement that
had been negotiated by companies and union leaders.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2YI3KA
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2YH35Z
    Norway's other oil and gas labour unions have accepted the
wage deal and will not go on strike.

 (Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Editing by Louise Heavens)
 ((gwladys.fouche@tr.com; +47 21 04 05 53; Reuters Messaging:
Twitter handle: @gfouche))