industryterm:oil workers

Hundreds of Norway oil workers go on strike, Shell shuts Knarr field | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-oil-wages/wage-talks-with-norway-oil-drilling-workers-go-into-overtime-strike-threat-

Hundreds of workers on Norwegian offshore oil and gas rigs went on strike on Tuesday after rejecting a proposed wage deal, leading to the shutdown of one Shell-operated field and helping send Brent crude prices higher.

One union said hundreds more workers would join the strike on Sunday if an agreement over union demands for a wage increase and pension rights was not reached.

Royal Dutch Shell said that due to the strike it was temporarily closing production at its Knarr field, which has a daily output of 23,900 barrels of mostly oil, but also natural gas liquids and natural gas.

Shutting the field, whose owners are Idemitsu, Wintershall and DEA, could take up to 36 hours, it said.

Norway is Western Europe’s biggest oil producer. The disruption added to a rise in global oil supply outages and helped push Brent crude up 1.2 percent to $79.03 per barrel.

Parliament, public against welfare cuts - Freedoms make austerity campaign tricky for govt - Kuwait Times | Kuwait Times
▻http://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/parliament-public-welfare-cuts

Billions of dollars are at stake; finance ministry undersecretary Khalifa Hamada told the al-Qabas newspaper at the end of last year that “rationalizing” subsidies would save the government KD 2.6 billion ($8.7 billion) over three years. Savings would be greater if the bloated public payroll could be reformed. The finance ministry projected in January that the government would run a budget deficit of KD 12.2 billion in the fiscal year starting on April 1, 2016, after state contributions to the sovereign wealth fund.

Between 7,000 and 13,000 of around 18,000 Kuwaiti nationals in the oil sector took part in the strike in late April, union members estimated. Union membership is not compulsory and foreign workers are not permitted to strike. Workers were protesting a proposed overhaul of the public sector payroll system that would set uniform standards for salaries, bonuses and benefits. The Oil and Petrochemical Industries Workers Confederation fears the government will use the reform to freeze salaries of higher-paid employees.

Ultimately, the union called off the strike “in honor of His Highness the Amir”, and the government insisted it made no concessions – an apparent victory for authorities. But the union has been talking to the government since the strike ended, so concessions could still be made. Kuwait’s oil output fell as low as 1.1 million barrels per day during the strike from the usual output of around 3 million bpd, tarnishing the country’s image as a reliable exporter.

“The workers have achieved their main objective of getting their message across,” said Faisal Abu Sulaib, another political science professor at Kuwait University. Saif al-Qahtani, chairman of the oil workers’ union, said he could not speak for other unions but that some of them also opposed wage system reform. Some other union members and analysts said a string of strikes in Kuwait remained unlikely. An official at the headquarters of the Kuwait Trade Union Federation, which represents 15 unions in the energy and government sectors, said it had not been informed of any other planned walkouts.

Nevertheless, in the wake of the oil strike, the government may move even more gradually and cautiously with reforms. While most of the current parliament has been relatively supportive of the idea of reform, legislative elections are due next year, and the government will not want the issue of austerity to cause the election of a more antagonistic parliament.

Kuwait oil workers plan to strike over pay cut | GulfNews.com
▻http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/kuwait/kuwait-oil-workers-plan-to-strike-over-pay-cut-1.1283998

Thousands of oil workers in Opec member Kuwait plan to go on strike over a government decision to cut their wages, the head of the oil workers union said on Wednesday.
“Trade unions of all oil companies have taken a decision to go on strike and authorised me to announce the date of the strike, which will be determined within the next two days,” Abdul Aziz Al Sharthan said.
“After making a number of legal procedures, I will set the date of the strike, which will be within two weeks,” he said after lengthly talks on Tuesday night with new Oil Minister Ali Al Omair and top oil executives “ended without resolving the problem”.
Sharthan said the crisis was the result of a decision by Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC), the national oil conglomerate, to “cut some benefits and increments” from oil workers.

Libya forced to import oil as bright new dawn fades | The Times
▻http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article3858821.ece

Libya, which has the world’s fifth largest petroleum reserves, is importing oil to stave off power cuts after renegade guards crippled pipelines in the worst conflict since the 2011 civil war.

A coalition of rebel fighters who toppled Muammar Gaddafi, and oil workers with tribal loyalties who are opposed to the Government in Tripoli, have shut down wells and ports across the country.

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The leader of Iraq’s oil union is being threatened with prison–again. ▻http://inthesetimes.com/article/14808/for_unionists_iraqs_oil_war_rages_on

Many Iraqi oil workers thought the fall of Saddam Hussein would mean they would finally be free to organize unions, and that their nationally owned industry would be devoted to financing the reconstruction of the country. But the reality could not have been more different. Earlier this month, the head of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, Hassan Juma’a was hauled into a Basra courtroom and accused of organizing strikes, a charge for which he could face prison time. The union he heads is still technically illegal: Saddam’s ban on public-sector unions was the sole Saddam-era dictate kept in place under the U.S. occupation, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki hasn’t shown any interest in changing it since most U.S. troops left.

And the oil industry? The big multinational petroleum giants now run the nation’s fields. Between 2009 and 2010, the Maliki government granted contracts for developing existing fields and exploring new ones to 18 companies, including ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, the Italian Eni, Russia’s Gazprom and Lukoil, Malaysia’s Petronas and a partnership between BP and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation. When they started, the U.S. military provided the initial security umbrella protecting all of their field operations.

The Ministry of Oil technically still owns the oil, but functions more as the multinationals’ adjunct, while stripping workers of their rights. Since 2003 the ministry has denied the union its right to exist and retaliated against its leaders and activists. As the oil corporations rush in to lay claim to developing fields, ministry spokesman Assam Jihad told the Iraq Oil Report in 2010, “Unionists instigate the public against the plans of the oil ministry to develop [Iraq’s] oil riches using foreign development.”