Norway oil service workers agree wage deal, averting strike

OSLO (Reuters) - Offshore oil service workers in Norway struck a deal with employers during state-sponsored mediation to avoid going on strike in Western Europe's largest oil and gas producing nation, the IE&FLT and Safe labour unions said on Wednesday.

The government-appointed mediator separately confirmed that a deal had been reached.

The two unions initially planned to withdraw nearly 140 workers employed at SLB, Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Oceaneering and Weatherford.

Overall, the wages talks covered over 6,000 members of IE&FLT and about 1,200 members of Safe.

While any strike action would not have hit production in the initial phase, a longer-term conflict could have impacted output.

The Norwegian oil and gas companies that operate offshore fields, including state-controlled Equinor, agreed a wage deal with their workers earlier this month, preventing strike action.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)