(Bloomberg) -- No strike notice has been lodged so far after negotiations between Woodside Energy Group Ltd. and workers at one of Australia’s major liquefied natural gas operations ended without a resolution.
“Substantial progress was made at talks held on Wednesday and the parties have reached in-principle agreement on a number of issues that are key to the workforce,” a Woodside spokesperson said Thursday. “Woodside has not received any notices of protected industrial action.”
Unions had pledged to trigger an option to give the required seven working days’ notice to start industrial action if the Wednesday talks failed to deliver a breakthrough. The Offshore Alliance didn’t immediately comment outside normal business hours in Australia.
Workers at the North West Shelf operations have been locked in discussions with Woodside over demands around pay and other conditions for months, and similar negotiations are ongoing at Chevron Corp. sites. Woodside has said for several weeks that the parties have reached an in-principle agreement.
Strikes at the Woodside and Chevron facilities could put as much as 10% of global LNG supply at risk, and prices in Europe and Asia have surged this month on the prospect of action.
Benchmark European natural gas prices sank 14% on Wednesday to erase most of the gains over the prior two sessions.
(Updates with European gas price moves in sixth paragraph)
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