From the North Sea (IF): The threat of possible strike action continues to hang over the UK North Sea.

Officials from the GMB and Unite unions will be involved in further talks on Wednesday (20 May) on the dispute over unilateral changes to working conditions for workers covered by the Offshore Contractors Agreement.

After latest discussions with the Offshore Contractors Association last week, the unions agreed to put on hold the ballot for strike action. Members of both unions have already voted in a consultative ballot to go ahead with the official ballot.

Unite said the improving oil price should bring an immediate end to the industry’s ‘opportunistic campaign’ of job cuts and impositions to working conditions such as a new three week on, three week off shift pattern.

Unite Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty said ‘the recovering oil price’ should put an end to the imposition of ‘regressive working practices’ across the North Sea.
‘Our members have been very clear that the industry’s actions will not only compromise the sustainability of jobs and skills for the next generation of oil recovery,’ Rafferty said, ‘it could also have catastrophic consequences for offshore safety too.’

The union official said big oil companies must stop exerting commercial pressure on contractors to allow time to negotiate a sustainable future between the workforce and its employers.

Optimism continues to fall in the industry here, according to the latest quarterly Oil & Gas UK Business Sentiment Index. Confidence in the sector has dropped from -23 points to -31 on a -50/+50 scale.

For the past eight quarters, the sector’s optimism has followed a downward trend and the overall index has dipped further into negative territory, for the third quarter in succession.

Meanwhile, most northeast Scotland businesses are worried about the impact of lower oil prices, it has emerged in another study. More than 90% of firms said the decline in the oil price has had or is expected to have a detrimental impact.

The survey also found the lower oil price has driven 59% of energy-sector companies to reduce prices and has also resulted in 40% losing contracts and 29% making redundancies.

Among the latest North Sea firms to be planning to cut jobs are Stork, Amec Foster Wheeler and Wood Group, while Rowan Drilling UK is mulling the possibility of redundancies.

Subsea 7 this week announced a programme of cost-reduction measures including slimming down in its fleet and workforce. The overall reduction in workers numbers could be around 2,500 by early 2016, while the fleet will be reduced by up to 11 vessels. More than 400 posts are expected to go in the UK.