The crisis-ridden oil companies will have to face further hardship in the days to come. After facing financial stress due to under recovery in the administered price regime, they new have to contend with employee discontent.
Oil Sector Officers? Association (OSOA), a representative body of 50,000 executives of 14 oil public sector undertakings (PSUs), has given a call for an indefinite strike from November 18 to protest against the discriminatory attitude of the centre towards the national oil companies (NOC) and to press for early settlement of executive pay revision which is due from January 1, 2007.
If the proposed strike goes through the it will mean huge losses for the oil producing and marketing companies. In the upstream oil business, the loss of revenue on account of loss of crude production, sale of gas and value added products will be to the tune of Rs 183 crore per day for ONGC and more than Rs 225 crore for others.
In the down stream side of the business, the revenue loss is likely to be to the tune of Rs 600 crore per day for IOC alone and more than Rs 900 crore for all the oil marketing companies (OMCs). The loss on excise duty is expected to be more than Rs 100 crore per day.