Unionized workers in Colombia for Occidental Petroleum Corp. have agreed to a deal that averts a possible strike that threatened to halt production at the 90,000-barrel-a-day Caño Limon oil field.
Tarsicio Mora, head of CUT, Colombia’s largest trade union federation, said a labor agreement will be signed later Monday that includes a 5.7% salary increase for this year followed by a raise next year equal to the consumer price inflation rate plus an additional percentage point.
Officials at Los Angeles, Calif.-based Occidental weren’t immediately available to comment.
On May 4, 400 workers for Occidental, including those that operate the Caño Limon field in northeastern Colombia, threatened to stop working, saying the company’s new labor deal proposal would cut their gross income by 30%.
Discovered by Occidental in 1983, the Caño Limon field is one of Colombia’s oldest and biggest and has so far produced more than 1 billion barrels of oil.