OSLO, July 14, 2018 - Norway's ship-owners and two oil unions said on Saturday they planned no compromise talks to end a five-day strike over wages and pension benefits before a planned escalation of the stoppage from Monday. Hundreds of workers on Norwegian offshore oil and gas rigs went on strike on Tuesday after rejecting a proposed wage deal, closing Shell's Knarr field, which produces 23,900 barrels of oil equivalent per day. One of the unions, Safe, plans to escalate actions from Monday (Sunday 22:00 GMT) and send 901 more workers on strike. The stoppage will have no immediate extra impact on oil and gas output. The Norwegian Ship-owners' Association said it planned no contact to resolve the strike before the deadline and was considering countermeasures instead. "A middle way is not a solution. Our position is unchanged. I don't think that there will be any contact during the weekend," the Ship-owners' Association chief negotiator Jakob Korsgaard told Reuters. Chief executive John Lechner of Archer, from which more than 100 workers plan to strike, hitting drilling operations and possibly future output from Aker BP's wells in Valhall field, also said he did not know of any efforts to resolve the standoff.
