Due to Australian energy major Santos refusing to guarantee wages for workers due to mobilise later this week, the offshore construction crew could decide to boycott the Barossa project.
The Offshore Alliance union said via social media that Santos needed to guarantee wages for workers scheduled to mobilise, or they would find themselves without a workforce.
“Hiding under a rock and refusing to guarantee workers’ wages is no way for any oil and gas company to operate. Offshore construction crew are standing up and fighting back,” the union said.
Last week, Santos was given an interim injunction by the Federal Court of Australia to prevent it from laying the Barossa Gas Export Pipeline (GEP).
This decision to block the Barossa pipeline laying until November 13, 2023, is in connection with an application by Mr Simon Munkara seeking an order that Santos revise and resubmit the environment plan (EP) that was accepted by the country’s offshore regulator NOPSEMA in March 2020. Munkara alleged that laying the GEP will impact submerged Tiwi cultural heritage, creating a new environmental risk.
A vessel that was supposed to lay the pipes was literally stopped in its tracks as it left Darwin on Wednesday and was just hours away from starting work when the injunction was given on Thursday morning. The two vessels that were contracted for the pipelaying were Allseas’ Audacia and Fortitude.
Since the injunction stopped all work on the Barossa project, Offshore Alliance has already written to Santos to ensure payment of wages for all construction workers on the two vessels.
The union is also asking for a commitment to paying deck officers on both vessels and the three AOS PSVs in full which includes union members who are crew changing in two weeks’ time.
