ENI / VERSALIS
Italy braces for another strike over envisaged refinery closures / Nationwide demonstration planned in Rome for 29 July
Italy’s petrochemicals sector is bracing for another sciopero. The country’s powerful trade unions have called for a one-day strike of all production facilities as well as commercial and administrative offices of Eni (Rome / Italy; www.eni.com) on 29 July to protest plans for closure of refineries and downstream units at at least three locations across the country – see Plasteurope.com of 10.07.2014.
Workers were initially informed of the potential closures earlier this month at a meeting in Rome with Eni’s new CEO, Claudio Descalzi. According to Italian media reports, the refinery complexes at Gela and Priolo in Sicily, along with sites at Taranto and Livorno, are threatened. The unions see more than 3,500 jobs at risk as Eni tries to refocus on the more profitable oil and gas exploration sector and downsizes its engagement in petrochemicals. The new CEO formerly headed the upstream business.
The new industrial action would follow a two-day outage on 7-8 July at Eni’s plastics subsidiary Versalis in advance of the meeting with Descalzi, as well as strikes held the following week at Gela. The late July walk-out at the energy and petrochemicals giant, to 30% state-owned and one of Italy’s most powerful companies, will be flanked by a nationwide demonstration in Rome. Worker protests are said to threaten at companies across the country in the face of record unemployment levels.
Italian media reports said the escalating power struggle between Eni and the trade unions will likely cast a shadow over the unveiling of Descalzi's new strategy on 31 July. It was just over a year ago that Versalis CEO Daniele Ferrari introduced a new strategy aimed at progressively reducing the company’s capacity for base chemicals while increasing the share of specialities and green chemistry – see Plasteurope.com of 02.05.2013. The first part of the strategy was a foregone conclusion but it appears now that the second part will not be realised as planned.
The escalating tension in the refinery and petrochemicals sector is said to be creating a potentially explosive situation for new Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who reportedly picked Descalzi for the volatile job. The prime minister is seen as walking a tightrope, trying to keep the unions in his camp while promising radical reforms to move the economy forward. “Eni’s strategy could cripple the refinery sector,” the Italian news agency ANSA quotes Luigi Ulgiati, secretary general of the chemical workers’ division of the labour union UGL, as saying. “The government must step in because we risk deindustrialising the country and creating mass unemployment in the name of debatable notions of efficiency.”
Eni’s refining and marketing unit is thought to have lost EUR 800m over the past two years. If Descalzi fails to turn the business around, ratings agencies have warned, the company’s credit rating could be downgraded.
Workers were initially informed of the potential closures earlier this month at a meeting in Rome with Eni’s new CEO, Claudio Descalzi. According to Italian media reports, the refinery complexes at Gela and Priolo in Sicily, along with sites at Taranto and Livorno, are threatened. The unions see more than 3,500 jobs at risk as Eni tries to refocus on the more profitable oil and gas exploration sector and downsizes its engagement in petrochemicals. The new CEO formerly headed the upstream business.
The new industrial action would follow a two-day outage on 7-8 July at Eni’s plastics subsidiary Versalis in advance of the meeting with Descalzi, as well as strikes held the following week at Gela. The late July walk-out at the energy and petrochemicals giant, to 30% state-owned and one of Italy’s most powerful companies, will be flanked by a nationwide demonstration in Rome. Worker protests are said to threaten at companies across the country in the face of record unemployment levels.
Italian media reports said the escalating power struggle between Eni and the trade unions will likely cast a shadow over the unveiling of Descalzi's new strategy on 31 July. It was just over a year ago that Versalis CEO Daniele Ferrari introduced a new strategy aimed at progressively reducing the company’s capacity for base chemicals while increasing the share of specialities and green chemistry – see Plasteurope.com of 02.05.2013. The first part of the strategy was a foregone conclusion but it appears now that the second part will not be realised as planned.
The escalating tension in the refinery and petrochemicals sector is said to be creating a potentially explosive situation for new Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who reportedly picked Descalzi for the volatile job. The prime minister is seen as walking a tightrope, trying to keep the unions in his camp while promising radical reforms to move the economy forward. “Eni’s strategy could cripple the refinery sector,” the Italian news agency ANSA quotes Luigi Ulgiati, secretary general of the chemical workers’ division of the labour union UGL, as saying. “The government must step in because we risk deindustrialising the country and creating mass unemployment in the name of debatable notions of efficiency.”
Eni’s refining and marketing unit is thought to have lost EUR 800m over the past two years. If Descalzi fails to turn the business around, ratings agencies have warned, the company’s credit rating could be downgraded.
23.07.2014 Plasteurope.com [228791-0]
Published on 23.07.2014