Britain’s Unite union has announced an escalation of strike action by about 170 offshore workers employed by energy company Apache, in a dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.
A 24-hour strike is scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. GMT on Wednesday 4 November and run until 5.59 a.m. on Thursday 5 November, the union said on Tuesday.
Further stoppages are planned across Apache-operated offshore assets later in the month. Workers on the Forties Alpha, Forties Bravo, Forties Delta and Beryl Bravo platforms are due to strike from 13 to 14 November, while workers on the Forties Charlie, Forties Echo and Beryl Alpha platforms are set to strike from 15 to 16 November.
Unite said it had challenged what it called misleading claims from Apache about the pay and working conditions of the offshore workers, and said many of the workers it represents at Apache earn significantly below the industry average for their roles. That pay claim is the union’s own account of the dispute: Apache did not immediately reply to a request for comment at the time of the report.
The escalation follows a previous stoppage in late October which, according to Unite, brought all seven offshore assets involved in the dispute to a standstill.
The dispute carries wider significance because of the Forties Pipeline System. Unite warned in October that disruption at the Charlie platform could affect the pipeline system, which transports crude from more than 80 North Sea oil and gas fields and handles around 29% of Britain’s oil and 30% of its gas supplies. The system is also significant because it carries some of the oil that makes up the pricing benchmark for the physical North Sea oil trade.
Apache told Reuters in early October that any strike action would not prevent other companies from using the pipeline system, a point that underlines the central question in the dispute: whether the stoppages will disrupt Apache’s own operations, the wider pipeline network, or both.
For now, the union’s announcement sets up a fortnight of staggered action, beginning with Wednesday’s 24-hour strike and continuing with the two waves of platform strikes in mid-November, unless the dispute is resolved before then.
Note: the featured image is a file photo of a Dutch gas platform in the North Sea, taken in 2012, not a photograph of an Apache platform.
Sources: Reuters, “Unite union says Apache offshore workers to escalate UK strike action”, 3 November 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/unite-union-says-apache-offshore-workers-escalate-uk-strike-action-2026-11-03/
