North Sea Plan for Strikes Approved

The UK's Unite trade union on Saturday approved plans for industrial action at Total's North Sea oil and gas fields, including the Shetland Gas Plant, as a dispute over offshore rotas flared up again.
In a statement, Unite said its offshore members had "voted overwhelmingly for industrial action on the Elgin-Franklin, Shetland Gas Plant, North Alwyn and Dunbar platforms."
On the timing of the action, a Unite spokesman told S&P Global Platts: "We need to give employers 14 days' notice, but that notification will be going in imminently."
The announcement signals a resumption of a dispute over rotas last year that caused five days of strikes, reducing gas output by as much as 13 million cubic meters and oil output by around 70,000 bpd, much of the latter contributing to the Forties crude stream.
Elgin-Franklin was shut down for nearly a year earlier in the decade following a major gas leak, but production has since recovered and oil output was in the region of 60,000-70,000 bpd last year.
However, in this instance, Unite is formally in dispute with two service companies that operate day-to-day production under contract to Total: Aker Solutions and Petrofac. As well as affecting North Sea fields such as Elgin-Franklin, the dispute could disrupt output from the UK's largest gas production hub, in the west of Shetland area.