Australian court orders LNG construction workers to stop protests

By JAMES PATON
Bloomberg

Union workers in Australia who disrupted construction at the site of more than $60 billion in natural gas-export projects were ordered to stop their strike, according to contractor Bechtel.

Australia’s federal court granted an injunction against the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and 72 workers, San Francisco-based Bechtel said Wednesday in an e-mailed response to questions.

The contractor won’t agree to union demands to immediately reduce the number of weeks fly-in, fly-out employees work for every week off.

The dispute with the unions has raised concern over delays to the start of the liquefied natural gas projects being built on the nation’s northeast coast by BG Group, Santos and ConocoPhillips. BG’s Queensland Curtis LNG venture is scheduled to begin later this year, with the two other developments targeting a 2015 startup.

“You don’t have a lot of time to catch up,” said Andrew Williams, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in Melbourne. “Right now the critical thing for these projects is keeping to that timing. The one most at risk obviously is QCLNG,” he said, referring to BG’s project.

Union workers this week are voting on a revised labor proposal that includes a 13% pay increase, extra daily allowances and changes to the roster in the future to three weeks on and one week off, compared with four weeks currently, according to Bechtel.

Bechtel asked for the injunction because union members weren’t complying with the Fair Work Commission’s decision that industrial action should stop, the contractor said.

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