Unocal workers cancel strike plan

Workers of East Kalimantan oil and gas producer Unocal Indonesia canceled plan to hold massive strike that might have caused operations shutdown in all of its operations area, a company official said on Thursday.

?Thank God the workers finally agreed to continue negotiation with management without holding strike,? spokesperson Usman Slamet told Petromindo.Com. Unocal Indonesia is a unit of US oil giant Chevron Corp.

Unocal?s workers, which are grouped in two unions, demanded that the management gives better pay for overtime and merger bonus. The workers had originally planned for massive strike on Wednesday.

Usman said that Unocal Indonesia had prepared emergency mode should the strike happen. He added that if materialized, the strike would have affected Pertamina?s Balikpapan refinery operations as Unocal is the single gas supplier to the refinery and would also affect gas supply to Bontang LNG plant. He added that the strike would also have affected VICO Indonesia?s operations as VICO pipes its condensate production to Unocal?s Santan processing facility.

Usman hoped that the management and workers? unions would eventually come to satisfactory agreement.

Unocal currently produces around 200 MMCFD of gas and liquids from its East Kalimantan operations. (alex)