MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil rejected three proposals in August made by the union representing 650 locked-out workers at the company’s Beaumont, Texas, refinery, reported Reuters with reference to the company's statement.
“Over 120 days have passed since the initiation of the lockout, and the union has not presented an offer that came close to meeting the company’s objectives,” Exxon said in a message posted its website.
A spokesperson for the United Steelworkers union (USW) local 13-243, which represents the locked-out workers, was not immediately available for comment.
Exxon locked out the hourly employees at the 369,024 barrel-per-day refinery and adjoining lubricant oil plant on May 1 to avoid a strike as a 75-day labor peace period came to an end following the expiration of the contract.
The USW has said the company's last proposal, made in January, requires its members to give up long-standing seniority and would create a separate contract for workers in the lube oil plant from that for workers in the refinery.
As MRC informed earlier, in July, 2021, ExxonMobil began hiring additional temporary operators of its Beaumont, Texas refinery as a lockout of 650 union-represented workers runs into its 11th week. Exxon said then it took the decision to hire the new workers after four meetings with the United Steelworkers (USW) union local 13-243 failed to yield the results the company expected.
We remind that in mid-summer, 2021, ExxonMobil's Beaumont, Texas refinery was operating at about 60% of its 369,024-bpd capacity because of the lockout of union workers.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
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