By Erwin Seba
HOUSTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. refinery strike widenedas workers at the nation's largest refinery walked off theirjobs at 12 a.m. CST (0600 GMT) on Saturday, according to theUnited Steelworkers union (USW).
Shortly after talks between union and oil companyrepresentatives ended on Friday night, the union notified MotivaEnterprises of a strike by its members at thecompany's 600,250 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Port Arthur,Texas.
The USW also gave notices on Friday of strikes to begin in24 hours at Motiva's 235,000 bpd Convent, Louisiana and 238,000bpd Norco, Louisiana refineries and the Shell Oil Co chemicalplant in Norco, the union said.
"The industry's refusal to meaningfully address safetyissues through good faith bargaining gave us no other option butto expand our work stoppage," USW International President LeoGerard said in a statement.
Motiva is a 50-50 joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Aramco. Shell's U.S. arm Shell OilCo is the lead oil company negotiator in talks with the USW fora national agreement on safety, pay and benefits.
A Shell spokesman said the company was disappointed by thePort Arthur walkout and strike notices to the Louisiana plants.
"We believe this move sets the wrong tone for both partiesto move forward and reach an agreement," said Shell spokesmanRay Fisher. "We remain committed to continued safe operationsand productive negotiations."
If no agreement is reached between Shell and the USW byearly Sunday morning, a total of 6,550 workers at 15 plants,including 12 refineries accounting for 18.5 percent of U.S.production capacity, will be walking picket lines in the largestnational refinery strike since 1980.
This is the first expansion of the strike since Feb. 6, whenworkers at BP Plc-operated refineries in Indiana and Ohiowere told to begin a work stoppage the following day.
Workers are already on strike at Shell's 327,000 bpdjoint-venture refinery in Deer Park, Texas, and an adjoiningchemical plant. The Deer Park workforce walked out when thestrike began on Feb. 1.
The strike may complicate operations at the Port Arthurrefinery, which failed to restore its second largest crudedistillation unit (CDU) to full production after restarting onFriday following a three-day shutdown to fix leaking piping,sources told Reuters.
The 195,000 bpd CDU is one of three at the refinery that dothe initial refining of crude oil coming into the plant andprovide feedstock for all other production units.
The refinery's largest CDU, which has a rated capacity of325,000 bpd is running at about 200,000 bpd, the sources said,because a 60,000 bpd hydrocracking unit is shut due to amalfunction. The hydrocracker produces motor fuel, primarilydiesel, which has become a lucrative export for U.S. refiners.
Motiva is also overhauling the 92,000 bpd gasoline-producingfluidic catalytic cracking unit at the refinery. It is scheduledto restart in the first half of March. It was shut in earlyJanuary.
Shell and the union have been meeting continuously sincetalks resumed on Wednesday following a week-long break for thecompany to reply to an information request and a counterproposalfrom the USW.
Union negotiators rejected the seventh contract offer fromShell on Thursday night.
Earlier this week, the USW's lead negotiator, InternationalVice President Gary Beevers, told Reuters that safe staffinglevels at refineries and chemical plants were a sticking pointin the talks.
Another sticking point is the absence of no-retrogressionlanguage, which preserves agreements from previous contracts notaddressed in negotiations this year.
In addition to the two BP-operated plants, workers arestriking at refineries and plants owned by Lyondell Basell, Marathon Petroleum Corp, and Tesoro Corp in California, Kentucky, Texas and Washington state.
Only one refinery has shut down due to the strike.
Tesoro's 166,000-bpd plant in Martinez, California, wasscheduled prior to the strike for a partial shutdown to performa planned multi-unit overhaul. Company officials decided to idlethe entire plant after the walkout began and said productionwould not resume during the work stoppage.
The USW is seeking a three-year, industrywide pact thatwould cover 30,000 workers at 63 U.S. refineries that togetheraccount for two-thirds of domestic capacity.
Companies have called on temporary replacement workers tokeep plants running at nearly normal levels.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Nick Macfie and ClarenceFernandez)