A strike by workers at the Sabic Europe Chemicals Geleen plant in the Netherlands has cut production, the company's Saudi Arabian owner said on Saturday.
Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic) said in a bourse statement that talks with a union over working conditions had not yet been successful and that it did not know what impact the strike would have on profits or production.
"The decrease in production begins 31/1/2013 due to the proactive measure taken by the union workforce as a consequence of no finalised agreement regarding work conditions," it said in the statement.
In Geleen, Sabic has two naphtha crackers and several polymerisation plants to produce polyethylene and polypropylene. Galeen produces 1.25 million tonnes per year of ethylene, 725,000 tonnes per year of propylene, 940,000 tonnes per year of polyethylene, and 620,000 tonnes per year of polypropylene.
"It is not possible to determine the financial effect or the effect on production capacity, at this time, because the affected plants are not yet known," Sabic added in the statement.
A Sabic spokesman in Europe said the disagreement was over payments to staff who might become redundant in the future.