Strike shuts South Korea's LG-Caltex Refinery
Reuters, Seoul
LG-Caltex Oil Corp., South Korea's second-biggest oil refiner, said on Tuesday striking workers had forced it to close its refinery, the first time a plant has been shut by labour unrest in one of Asia's top refining centres. LG-Caltex, a 50:50 joint venture set up in 1967 between South Korea's LG Group and ChevronTexaco Corp, accounts for about a quarter of South Korea's refining capacity and has nearly 30 percent of the domestic oil market. Company spokesman Lee Soo-jung said the strike and closure was costing about 30 billion won ($25.92 million) a day. Production at the 650,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery at Yosu in the south of the country was stopped on Monday after striking workers occupied some key control rooms. "The union got control of crude oil feed operations, a core unit, so we shut down the refinery for safety reasons," said another spokesman, Lee Young-won. The Energy Ministry said there was no immediate threat to oil supplies in the world's 11th-biggest economy and LG-Caltex was holding 19 days of oil stocks. But an energy ministry official, Choi Young-soo, said it could take up to 20 days for LG-Caltex to restart the refinery due to a shortage of workers. Compounding concerns in South Korea's petrochemical industry, unionised workers at Yeochon Naphtha Cracking Centre, the country's biggest ethylene maker, are due to vote on a strike over wages later this week.
|
|
