Paid more than the average American CEO, Norway's oil workers are demanding an even bigger bounty, threatening strikes and chewing away at the competitiveness of a vital European oil and gas supplier.
Riding a global exploration boom and backed by Europe's fastest growing economy, oil workers in Norway, the world's eighth biggest oil exporter, can almost set their own terms. And they are taking advantage.
Offshore workers shut part of the sector last month with a 16-day strike for better pay and the right to early retirement, and services workers are threatening a September shutdown if their own terms are not improved.
The labor action was a blow for a sector already struggling with record output costs, falling volumes and shrinking margins.
"As a Norwegian, it's almost embarrassing that it's twice as expensive to drill in the Norwegian side of the North Sea than on the UK side," Hege Kverneland, the Chief Technology Officer at National Oilwell Varco (NOV.N) said.
"It's hard to understand and when you see this from the outside, you start to wonder if they are completely mad," she added.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/30/us-norway-oil-idUSBRE87T0EE20120830
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