‘SHOW SOME BLASTED RESPECT!’

This from Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) president general Ancel Roget as he yesterday defended the union’s decision to tender notice to state-owned oil company Petrotrin of a strike by its workers over stalled salary negotiations.

Roget yesterday sought to defend the OWTU against criticism from the business sector, government and large sections of society for threatening a strike that could cripple the country’s largest income earner amid an economic downturn.

Roget insists that Petrotrin can pay its workers an enhanced salary.

The intended three-month strike is expected to begin next Monday __ the start of the new school term. But even as Roget called for Government to treat oil workers with some “blasted respect”, he later led OWTU officials in a meeting with Petrotrin officials at the Ministry of Labour office in San Fernando in a last minute effort at coming to some kind of agreement to prevent the strike action.

Up to press time, the five-hour meeting was still in progress and OWTU members who earlier in the day had gathered in a fiery and upbeat mood and included a rhythm section, sat morosely outside the Labour Ministry office as the Sun began to set.

Earlier, at a press conference, Roget displayed a copy of the strike notice addressed to Petrotrin President Fitzroy Harewood.

He said the letter that if the last ditch meeting did not bear fruit, he would serve the letter at Petrotrin’s administration offices in Pointe-a-Pierre today at 7 am.

He appealed to the court of public opinion as he sought to justify the strike saying mismanagement and inefficiency at Petrotrin is costing the company over $552 million per annum.

“This is based on Petrotrin’s own information and record. These inefficiencies include equipment reliability, operational inefficiency, overtime, flaring and quality giveaways,” Roget said adding, “this is more than what workers are demanding for the entire three-year period. The workers are also not asking for what other workers got, but rather ten percent which is below the 14 percent threshold for the same collective period.” “Petrotrin, believe it or not, has the ability to pay this wage increase,” he insisted, citing several “poor” decisions including a failed World Gas To Liquids (WGTL) project, which cost the company over $1 billion and payment for a production facility at South West Soldado, which never materialized.

He also cited a long delay of the Ultra-Low Sulphur Diesel which was supposed to be delivered in 2015, but was first delayed to 2017 and now 2020.

“This strike will put a microscope to show the extremely bad performance by management.

The country has only heard doom and gloom from the (Petrotrin) President. He has not stated to the country, to the government or to the workers how he intends to turn around Petrotrin,” Roget said.

“Another important point has to do with Petrotrin’s bottom line which is the purchase of gas.

Petrotrin purchases 61 million standard cubic feet of gas from NGC. However, instead of using its own gas produced in the fields and maximizing the gas purchased from NGC, the Company has engaged in burning off the gas both at the Refinery and in the producing fields,” Roget continued, adding, “proper utilization of the gas would mean that Petrotrin can purchase less gas from the NGC Grid, having the effect that NGC will have more gas to sell to industries in Pt Lisas which badly need the gas.” “A 50 percent reduction in this process of burning off the gas can save $3 million per month or $36 million per year,” he said. Roget also slammed the company’s lack of storage capacity saying this had been reduced by less than 65 percent within the last three years.

“To date eight tanks have been taken out of service for repairs, however none have returned to service and the significance of this point is that when there are ships in harbour that cannot off load crude because those tanks are limited, Petrotrin has to pay millions of dollars in demurrage, when the product is not off loaded on time.” He noted there was a critical need to increase indigenous crude oil as Petrotrin purchases about 155,000 barrels per day of a mixture of local and foreign crude to refine; with local crude accounting for 45,000 barrels. “Therefore, if Petrotrin produced more local crude then you would import less and the profit margin will be much more.

This has nothing to do with workers’ wages. The union has developed a quick win plan to increase local production to make the company profitable,” he said.

He said overtime had cost the company approximately $8.7 million in September and that figure had reached $10.4 million in October.

“Though not yet in, figures for November and December are expected to be astronomical, far exceeding September and October figures. This exorbitant overtime cost is the result of manpower shortages and bad planning.

In critical areas of the company they have not filled vacancies, so we have operators who are working for very long hours __ double shift continuously for over four years, in difficult conditions and there is no succession planning and non-filling of vacancies. With proper management and with the right decisions the company can save millions of dollars per year by cutting overtime cost,” Roget said.

Denial of a fair adjustment and wages will not save Petrotrin, Roget said. Giving workers zero, zero, zero for 2011-2014 and zero, zero, zero for 2014-2017, or zeroes until eternity __ he added __ will not save Petrotrin. “What will save Petrotrin is a radical change at the top that can significantly cut down on the inefficiencies and increase local crude production.”