(Bloomberg) — Two days before contract negotiations are scheduled to resume between Royal Dutch Shell Plc and the United Steelworkers’ oil union, the company announced plans to run its second-largest U.S. refinery without union labor.
Shell will have trained and deployed enough “relief workers” by mid-summer to keep the 327,000-barrel-a-day Deer Park refinery in Texas running at full operations, The Hague, Netherlands-based company said late Monday on its website. USW members went on strike at the complex on Feb. 1 after their contract expired and talks broke down.
The announcement comes amid a national strike that’s now widened to 12 refineries accounting for almost 20 percent of the capacity in the U.S., including BP Plc’s facility in Whiting, Indiana. Shell is leading the negotiations with the 30,000-strong United Steelworkers on behalf of companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.