The union of the National Administration of Fuel, Alcohol and Portland (Ancap) meets today in what from the board of directors of the state oil company Uruguay They hope it will be the occasion to revert the work measure to regulation during the maintenance shutdown at the refinery The Tile, which since yesterday is already turned off.
The long-awaited date and, in turn, so feared by the authorities of ancap It arrived yesterday, and with the first Monday of September, the main oil plant was shut down to begin in a few days important maintenance work —already delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic— which, in the best of cases, will be It will last for just over a month. The problem is that, given the current situation of union conflict with the union of the company, Ancap Federation (Fancap)it is possible that the time contemplated in which La Teja will be out of service could be extended to more than four months —with all the consequent inconveniences, especially in terms of costs.
The reason is the decision of the workers not to carry out Extra hours —during maintenance shutdowns, work is done in three shifts of eight hours each, with the aim of minimizing as much as possible the time in which the plant is out of operation—, within the framework of a plan to fight against the association of private to the portland business.
In this sense, the directory of ancap awaits with some moderate optimism the assembly that the union will hold today, hoping that this decision to work by regulation will be reversed, and the shutdown of the refinery can be reduced considerably.
“If we have good news on Tuesday (for today), we will get together to coordinate and talk with the workers about working conditions and to propose, as we have already said, a special bonus to be able to finish the work on time. I hope that sanity prevails ”, the president of Ancap, Alejandro Stipanicic, about.
In the event that Fancap does not reverse the decision, the “400 million dollars of potential loss due to loss of profits” will “impact the absorption capacity that it has ancap (on the price of fuels) in the internal market, that is, it is transferred to prices or directly transferred to the Ancap results, And that’s a serious issue.”
The expenses that Ancap could face
Although the La Teja refinery was shut down yesterday, maintenance operations are not expected to begin for a few weeks, due to the delay in the necessary preparation tasks, due to the different force measures that Fancap has been carrying out since almost four months ago, in the context of the conflict over the portland. This, in itself, means lost money for the oil companywhich had made all the contracts based on the original work schedule.
The problem remains at work according to regulations decided by the union, which will generate cost overruns that will have to be absorbed by the company, generating spending $800,000 per day. “It is one thing to keep the refinery idle for 100 days. And that is absorbed by the previous results of ancap and has the financial foresight that a company like ancap to make a maintenance stop, and another thing is that it is multiplied by five”, assured Stipanicic.
Faced with this, the union said that “this is an excuse for ancap” and that shows a malfunction of the refinery. “Let it be said that the entity loses its back due to a cut in overtime, what is revealed is a reality that cannot work based on overtime,” said the president of Fancap, Natalia Bello.
Source: Ambito
