I'm not sure what planet you live on. It was only reported this...

I'm not sure what planet you live on.

It was only reported this month hat Shell has had to delay maintenance on its Prelude floating gas facility due to industrial action which is going to cost them an estimated $500m - $1.1 billion.

There was also a recent article in the AFR of some egregious behaviour of some unionised members responsible for operating tugboats, seeking to milk as much money for as little work as they can.

These are just two examples I've seen reported in the last three weeks that I wasn't even looking for. If you cared to look, you would find a lot more cases of workers and unions taking advantage of the current tight labour market and really trying to milk every dollar out of oil and gas companies.

While many people who work on these projects, you would be naive to think the unions have little power. There are extensive regulations in place that give unions are lot of power to recruit members and to force companies to have union reps involved in many aspects of these projects due to ensure workers 'rights' and 'safety'.


You talk about supply and demand - what do you think happens when the supply of labour is tight? Is it wise to rush to commit a lot of money onto a project when labour is a huge cost, and where the risk of industrial action costing you hundreds of millions is very high?