Norway has narrowly avoided a strike at offshore oil platforms after trade unions and oil companies reached an agreement on wages in the early hours on Friday.
The potential strike over wages could have threatened smooth operations offshore Norway, Western Europe’s top oil and gas producer, at a time when the world is scrambling for oil and gas supply amid the Middle East crisis.
Almost 8% of oil and gas workers offshore Norway early this week threatened to go on a strike from June 5 if trade union negotiations with industry fail to reach an agreement in a government-brokered mediation process. More than 600 workers out of about 8,100 in total offshore Norway were ready to call a strike on Friday.
But a last-minute deal with the unions Styrke, Safe, and Lederne in the early hours on June 5 averts the strike following an agreement over offshore pay settlement for 8,000 offshore employees, Offshore Norway, which represented the oil industry in the wage talks, said today.
The negotiations were demanding, but “I am pleased that we have reached an agreement and avoided a strike,” said Elisabeth Brattebø Fenne, Director of Industrial Relations and chief negotiator for Offshore Norge.
The industry and trade unions agreed on a general annual pay increase of $4,500 (42,000 Norwegian crowns), including offshore compensation and holiday allowance. In addition, shift and night supplements will also increase.
“By standing together, we have achieved a better result than we would have managed individually,” leaders from the three trade unions said in a separate statement.
Norway produces more than 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, with oil and gas nearly equally divided at 2 million boepd each. Norway is shipping crude as far as Asia, which struggles without a large part of the Middle Eastern supply. Norway is also Europe’s single biggest gas supplier, having replaced Russia in 2022 when Putin invaded Ukraine.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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