UK Total Lindsey Refinery Talks Planned Thursday; Strikes Continue

Talks between employers and striking contract workers will resume Thursday over the sacking of workers at Total SA (TOT)'s 200,000-barrels-a-day Lindsey oil refinery in eastern England, an industry body said.

The parties met Tuesday in London without reaching an agreement but agreed to reconvene Thursday, the National Joint Council for the Engineering Construction Industry said in a statement posted on its Web site Tuesday. The council - comprised of both trade union and employer representatives - administers a national labor agreement for the U.K.'s engineering construction industry.

Total said last week that its contractors had issued dismissal notices to workers on a construction project at Lindsey, angering workers and prompting a wave sympathy strikes and protests. The contractors offered a Monday deadline for workers to reapply for their jobs.

Walkouts continued Wednesday at energy facilities across the U.K., although operations weren't affected.

Thousands of workers went on strike at the following sites: ConocoPhillips' (COP) 221,000-barrels-a-day Humber refinery, Royal Dutch Shell PLC's (RDSB.LN) 240,000-barrels-a-day Stanlow refinery, ScottishPower PLC's (SPI) Cockenzie and Longannet power stations, Scottish and Southern Energy PLC's (SSE.LN) Fiddler's Ferry and Ferrybridge power stations, E.ON AG's (EOAN.XE) Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, EDF Energy's (EEN.FR) Cottam power station, British Energy Group PLC's (BGY.LN) Hinkley Point B power station and Ensus Group's biofuel plant under construction.

At least 8% of contractors, or around 4,000 workers, in the U.K.'s engineering-construction industry walked out of more than a dozen sites Tuesday .

Company Web site: http://www.total.com

-By Lananh Nguyen, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]

(Angela Henshall in London contributed to this report.)