UK oil, gas staff strike over foreign workers

Technical workers at various oil and gas facilities in England and Wales have embarked on a sympathy strike because of a dispute over the hiring of foreign contractors at the Milford Haven LNG terminal.

May 21, 2009

2 min read

Uchenna Izundu
OGJ International Editor

LONDON, May 21 -- Technical workers at various oil and gas facilities in England and Wales have embarked on a sympathy strike because of a dispute over the hiring of foreign contractors for an insulation project at the Milford Haven LNG terminal.

With increasing unemployment in the area, laggers at Milford Haven in south Wales said that an agreement had been broken to offer jobs to local people and have protested at the arrival of Polish workers, urging them to go home.

Contracting firm Hertel UK said it had been unable to find skilled workers and had subcontracted the works to a third party, which had hired non-British labor.

After discussions with National Trade Union officials and local representatives, Hertel has proposed to withdraw 40 Polish construction workers and replace them with UK staff. This motion will be voted on May 21. Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said it would recommend to its members that this be accepted.

Employees at the Dragon LNG terminal in Milford Haven and workers at the Aberthaw power station in the Vale of Glamorgan started their unofficial strikes May 19. Others stopped work at the ConocoPhillips's Humber refinery and Total UK Ltd.'s Lindsey refineries in North Lincolnshire, Fiddlers Ferry electric power plant in Warrington, Cheshire, and engineering workers walked out at Ratcliffe-on-Soar electric power station in Nottinghamshire.

These strikes echo similar protests at the beginning of the year when Total was embroiled in a dispute with contractors over the use of Portuguese workers to help construct a diesel hydrodesulfurization unit at its 200,000 b/d Lindsey refinery (OGJ Online, Feb. 2, 2009).

Last week, an inauguration ceremony was held at Milford Haven to celebrate the beginning of the UK's new LNG import relationship with Qatar. The 15.6 million tonne/year terminal is the largest in Europe and is expected to reach full operational capacity by yearend. The ceremony was attended by the Queen and His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Amir of the State of Qatar, as well as other members of both royal families.

The terminal, which is being completed in two phases, includes five LNG storage tanks, a regasification plant, ship unloading systems, and a jetty to allow berthing of the world's largest LNG vessels.

Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected].