Maintenance workers at two offshore LNG facilities in Australia went on strike after failing to reach an agreement on wage terms with their employer, engineering major UGL.
“The end result of UGL’s inability to negotiate or accept industrial standards is protected industrial action,” trade union group the Offshore Alliance, which represents the workers, said in a statement as quoted by Reuters.
The strike will affect Woodside’s North West Shelf LNG facility as well as the neighboring Pluto LNG project, also operated by the Australian energy major. The North West Shelf LNG plant produces 14.3 million tons of the superchilled fuel annually, and Pluto LNG has a capacity of 4.9 million tons.
“We’ve been making sure we understand how to accommodate this. Working closely with our workforce has always been our priority, and we continue to have those strong relationships, so you know it’s sort of part of life,” Woodside’s chief executive, Liz Westcott, said, as quoted by Reuters.
Earlier this week, the Offshore Alliance also notified Japan’s Inpex that a strike may be imminent at the Japanese company’s Ichthys LNG project. “We have made it clear to Inpex that we aren’t going to cop the short-changing of our bargaining claims simply because Inpex could not be bothered reading our claims for six months,” a spokesperson for the Offshore Alliance said in a statement on Monday.
Australia is a top-three global exporter of liquefied natural gas thanks to its vast offshore reserves. It has recently returned to the spotlight after being edged out of it by booming U.S. exports, as the Qatari LNG crunch prompted Asian energy buyers to look for viable alternatives.
There has been concern about the Australian government imposing curbs on LNG exports to secure domestic supply amid tight gas availability on the densely populated east coast of the country but the government recently denied such plans over the near term. It will, however, mandate LNG producers to set aside a certain amount of gas for the domestic market to ensure supply security.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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