MOSCOW (MRC) -- Locked-out workers at the Co-op Refinery in Regina, Saskatchewan blockaded the facility, halting the movement of workers and trucks, the union and owner said, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Federated Cooperatives Ltd (FCL), which owns and operates the refinery, locked out 800 workers on Dec. 5 in a dispute over pensions, but has kept western Canada’s third-largest oil refinery operating with replacement workers and managers.
Unifor, which represents the workers, said that hundreds of union activists had surrounded the refinery, effectively shutting it down.
The lockout comes as western Canadian oil producers in Saskatchewan and Alberta struggle to move crude to U.S. refiners, their main market, due to congested pipelines.
FCL confirmed that blockades at the refinery’s entrances prevented people or trucks from passing in or out and said they violated a court injunction.
Brad DeLorey, a spokesman for FCL, said the actions were causing delays but the refinery remained fully operational.
The Co-op Refinery, which can process 135,000 barrels of oil per day, makes gasoline, propane and asphalt, among other products.
As MRC informed earlier, Russian oil major Rosneft said its oil refineries in the Samara region are increasing their level of environmental monitoring. Kazakhstan on Tuesday reduced oil supplies via the Atasu-Alashankou pipeline to China after tests carried out at the end of the last week showed a high content of organic chloride. Some oil transit from Kazakhstan to Russia goes via a pipeline which has a connection with the Russian pipeline system in the Samara region.
As MRC informed earlier, Rosneft said that its German subsidiary Rosneft Deutschland GmbH had completed the deal to acquire a 3.57% stake in Germany’s Bayernoil Raffineriegesellschaft mbH from BP.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
MRC