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Norwegian oil strike ends: labour ministry

10 July 2012 10:22 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Norway’s government intervened to end a 16-day oil strike just minutes ahead of a threatened lockout on Tuesday that would have halted production by western Europe’s largest crude exporter, APA reports citing Reuters.

"The strike is over," labour ministry spokesman Jan Richard Kjelstrup told AFP after the last-ditch deal, which sent North Sea crude prices plunging below the key $100 threshold in Asian trading.

The dispute over pensions between unions and employers -- in what is the world’s eighth-biggest oil exporter and second-biggest exporter of gas -- will now go to binding arbitration. he lockout would have prevented more than 7,000 people from going to work on the Norwegian continental shelf and cut off production of about two million barrels of oil equivalent a day.

Jan Hodneland, a negotiator for the Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF) employers’ group, said the government had made a "responsible choice".

He said: "We are now relieved that we do not have to shut down the production on the Norwegian continental shelf, however, we were ready to initiate a lockout if the government did not intervene."

The lockout, which was to have been enforced from midnight (2200 GMT) on Monday, had loomed after talks between employers and unions failed to end a strike involving more than 700 workers which began on June 24. Unions wanted employers to reconsider a decision not to grant special benefits to those who wish to retire at the age of 62, three years before the legal retirement age in the field and five years before the country-wide age.