June 8 : Workers will escalate the strike at Inpex’s Ichthys LNG facilities in Australia that started last week over a wage dispute, after talks failed to progress with the Japanese operator, the Offshore Alliance union said on Monday.

Ichthys accounts for about 10 per cent of LNG supply from Australia, which is now the world’s second-largest LNG exporter following damage to facilities in Qatar due to the Iran war.

The Offshore Alliance, made up of the Maritime Union of Australia and the Australian Workers’ Union, said it would ramp up the four-hour stoppages and bans at the facilities which commenced last Wednesday.

“Last night, members endorsed work stoppages escalating to eight hours per day, and we’ll be loading up a stack of work bans on Thursday,” the union said in a Facebook post.

The union said Inpex, Japan’s biggest oil and gas explorer, reneged on terms agreed in a Fair Work Commission-facilitated bargaining that took place on Saturday.

The union said Inpex is seeking an enterprise bargaining agreement with weaker conditions than previously discussed, including reduced remote-work benefits, fewer guaranteed full-time positions, lower pay relative to workers’ competency levels, and redundancy terms below industry standards.

Reuters could not immediately contact Inpex for comment.