Strikes by North Sea oil workers could ‘severely disrupt’ UK fuel supplies

The Forties Bravo oil platform in the North Sea. Photograph: Allan Coutts/Alamy View image in fullscreen The Forties Bravo oil platform in the North Sea. Photograph: Allan Coutts/Alamy Strikes ‘severely disrupt’ UK fuel supplies Union says staff left with no choice but industrial action after breakdown in pay talks with Texas oil firm Apache A looming strike “severely disrupt” UK fuel supplies, the Unite union has said, adding that staff were left with no choice after a breakdown in pay talks with the Texas oil company Apache. The union said Apache workers had “emphatically” backed strike action after being given what it said was an unacceptable pay offer that amounted to a real-terms pay cut for many employees, at a time when the company was “raking in eye-watering profits”. Unite said the operator had also set deadlines for reaching an agreement over back pay and indicated payments could be withheld, “leaving workers potentially thousands of pounds out of pocket”. Apache said it had “engaged constructively throughout the pay discussions” and added that it had offered a 4% pay increase for staff, “whose earnings already place them among the highest earners in the UK and whose offshore rota averages 153 working days a year”. Strike action could begin later this month, according to the union, and could involve more than 160 Apache offshore workers, including electrical experts, production technicians and radio operators. Any action would affect the Forties and Beryl oilfields, and could lead to one of the critical North Sea platforms, known as Charlie, “being brought to a standstill”, Unite said. That could ultimately result in the entire Forties pipeline system in the North Sea – which is said to handle almost a third of the UK’s oil and gas – “going down”, the union said, adding that the disruption could also ripple out and affect other large North Sea operators. Unite blamed the potential disruption on Apache’s failure to reach a pay deal, saying the company’s behaviour could have “far-reaching consequences for workers, operators and consumers”. Consumers have already been grappling with rising fuel and gas prices because of the US-Israel war on Iran, which has been disrupting supplies of crude and refined oil products from the Gulf. On Friday, British motorists were dealt a fresh blow when it emerged that the average price of diesel had climbed to a record £2 a litre. At the same time it was announced that leaders of G7 nations would release up to 100m barrels of their emergency diesel and crude oil stockpiles after Donald Trump threatened to cut off supplies of US diesel.