US refinery strike continues, another meeting set for Monday

HOUSTON (ICIS)–The United Steelworkers (USW) union scheduled another meeting with refiners on Monday, 9 March, as a strike continues at 15 refineries and petrochemical plants.

The USW held a meeting earlier on Wednesday with Shell, which is negotiating on behalf of the refineries.

The union cited unsafe staffing levels and work conditions; fires and leak; and overtime as reasons for the strike.

Plants participating in the strike include Motiva Enterprises’s 600,000 bbl/day refinery in Port Arthur, Texas; its 235,000 bbl/day refinery in Norco, Louisiana; and its 230,000 bbl/day refinery in Convent, Louisiana.

Motiva Enterprises is a 50:50 joint venture between Shell Oil and Saudi Aramco.

Also joining is a Shell Chemical plant in Norco, which has a nameplate capacity of 260,000 tonnes/year of butadiene (BD), 1.42m tonnes/year of ethylene and 1.05m tonnes/year of propylene, according to ICIS plants and projects.

Other affected plants include the LyondellBasell refinery in Houston; Marathon Galveston Bay refinery in Texas City, Texas; Marathon Houston Green Cogeneration facility in Texas City, Texas; the Marathon refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky; the Shell Deer Park refinery in Deer Park, Texas; the Shell Deer Park chemical plant in Deer Park, Texas; Tesoro refineries in Anacortes, Washington, and Carson, California; and BP refineries in Whiting, Indiana, and Toledo, Ohio.

 Those plants are still operating, with management taking over the union workers’ positions for the time being.

USW workers at Tesoro’s refinery in Martinez, California, are part of the original strike order, but the plant was taken off line since it was already undergoing maintenance, the company said during an earnings conference call. Production should resume after the strike ends.

Until then, Martinez will run as a terminal, the company said.

The USW has urged locals on 24-hour contract extensions to prepare to join the strike if called upon by the union.