SIBERIAN OIL FLOW SLIPS; LABOR UNREST PERSISTS

Oil production continued to fall in western Siberia's Tyumen Province during April. Tyumen crude and condensate flow in the first 4 months of 1991 averaged more than 600,000 b/d less than the level of the same 1990 period, the Moscow newspaper Rabochaya Tribuna reported. Last year, Tyumen Province oil production was about 7.2 million b/d, close to 60% of the U.S.S.R.'s total flow. The same article said Tyumen oil and gas workers are complaining that their living conditions are no better

May 20, 1991

2 min read

Oil production continued to fall in western Siberia's Tyumen Province during April.

Tyumen crude and condensate flow in the first 4 months of 1991 averaged more than 600,000 b/d less than the level of the same 1990 period, the Moscow newspaper Rabochaya Tribuna reported.

Last year, Tyumen Province oil production was about 7.2 million b/d, close to 60% of the U.S.S.R.'s total flow.

The same article said Tyumen oil and gas workers are complaining that their living conditions are no better than those of striking Soviet coal miners.

"We are told to meet our production quotas, but Moscow ever more rarely ensures that we receive necessary supplies," a top Tyumen Province official said. "The center (Moscow) rigidly fixes wholesale prices for oil and gas while the cost of materials and equipment we require for our fields increases day by day.

"Moreover, our petroleum workers find that their store shelves are empty. They can't buy what they need even when they have ration coupons."

LABOR PROBLEMS

Meantime, labor unrest in the U.S.S.R.'s petroleum industry is spreading even as Soviet authorities are getting some coal miners to return to work.

Workers at the Ryazan refinery southeast of Moscow have been "seething with discontent" this spring because of low pay, "wage leveling," and disinclination of plant management and union leaders to deal with social problems, the Moscow newspaper Trud said. It reported that Ryazan refinery "hotheads" want to strike.

A walkout would lead to stoppage of economic activity in a huge area supplied with fuel by the Ryazan plant, Trud said. Refinery management promised to double wages, and workers gave plant officials 1 month to settle other grievances.

In addition, personnel at the huge Uralmash metallurgical plant in Sverdlovsk, east of the Ural Mountains, are trying to remove Communist union bosses for failure to pay proper attention to the interests of rank and file workers. Uralmash manufactures practically all of the U.S.S.R.'s heavy drilling rigs.

Labor discontent has recently been manifested by western Siberian oil and gas field workers, pipeline builders, and geologists. Petroleum industry workers, including equipment makers and refinery, petrochemical, and oil field personnel, have carried out strikes in the Baku region of Azerbaijan during the past 2 years, and unrest persists there.