Workers at Chevron Australia LNG Plants to Strike for Three Weeks

Workers at Chevron Corp.'s liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Australia have decided to extend their planned strike to at least three weeks, accusing the energy giant of circumventing bargaining negotiations.

"The Offshore Alliance lawyers have served Chevron with a further Notice of Protected Industrial Action which will commence after our first 7 days of PIA kicks off on Thursday 7th September", the union said in a statement on Facebook. "The new Protected Industrial Action Notice will escalate workbans and the OA [Offshore Alliance] will have rolling 24 x 1 hour stoppages, each day for 14 days from Thursday 14th September".

The Offshore Alliance, which consists of the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) and the Maritime Union of Australia, had said a majority of workers at the Gorgon and Wheatstone facilities in Western Australia voted in favor of a strike to press for better employment standards. Of 253 Offshore Alliance members working at Gorgon 249 voted in the strike ballot, all in favor. Of 188 members at Wheatstone 184 voted, all in support of a strike, according to an earlier Offshore Alliance statement.

Meanwhile all six members of the Electrical Trades Union at Gorgon and all two at Wheatstone voted in favor of a strike, according to the ballot results statement.

The latest ballot results on strikes against Chevron Australia confirmed by the Fair Work Commission (FWC) showed all 37 AWU members eligible to vote said yes to a strike while all nine members of the Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia who were eligible to vote also supported a strike.

"The Offshore Alliance has 98 percent union density on the Gorgon and Wheatstone facilities and members have voted 100 percent in favor of taking Protected Industrial Action in support of a union EBA [enterprise bargaining agreement]", said the Offshore Alliance's announcement of the results.

The union later announced its lawyers have "served Chevron with formal Notice of Protected Industrial Action on all 3 West Coast facilities, commencing Thursday 7th September 2023".

The second notice served to Chevron Australia means the strike would now last at least three weeks.

The Offshore Alliance said the extended action was in response to Chevron Australia attempting to dodge a union-initiated deal and opting to put forward its own terms. The union said an enterprise agreement dished out by the company for a vote had won only seven supporters out of 979 employees.

Chevron had confirmed receipt of the first notice of a strike from Offshore Alliance. "While we don’t believe that industrial action is necessary for agreement to be reached, we recognize employees have the right to take protected industrial action and we will continue to take steps to maintain safe and reliable operations in the event of disruption at our facilities", Chevron Australia said in an emailed statement to Rigzone. "We will also continue to work through the bargaining process as we seek outcomes that are in the interests of both employees and the company".

In a statement to Rigzone about the further notice of a strike, it maintained it continues to pursue bargaining.

"We will also continue to take steps to maintain safe and reliable operations in the event of disruption at our facilities", Chevron Australia reasserted.

The Offshore Alliance also said a simultaneous baseline agreement put forward by Chevron Australia contractor Altrad-AGC has now been ruled by the FWC as "ingenuine and fake" with several people engaged in a "sham exercise". Altrad could not be contacted for comment at the time of writing.

The strike comes amid a plan to upgrade the Wheatstone plant, which Chevron Australia says "is one of the world's largest LNG projects and the largest single resource project in Australia's history".

Chevron Australia said August 23 it is working to raise the facility's capacity from 205 terajoules per day (TJpd) to 215 TJpd, or by five percent.

Potential Gas Shortage

Offshore Alliance said a strike at Gorgon and Wheatstone would bring supply uncertainty in Western Australia.

In a statement August 22 about a planned strike against Woodside Energy Group Ltd.'s North West Shelf plant, the union warned, "Western Australian gas users could face greater uncertainty on gas supply in the coming weeks when Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone plants could also face industrial action".

"The three plants supply about 45 percent of WA’s [Western Australia] gas consumption", the statement posted on Facebook noted.

But on August 24 the Offshore Alliance said it has in principle reached a deal with local company Woodside to avert the strike. Included in the enterprise agreement with Woodside are new salary terms and job security, the union said in a Facebook statement.

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