Oil Workers Strike (Bloomberg) — The heart and soul of a modern refinery isn’t the welders and pipefitters with grease on their hands, it’s the white-collar technicians seated at computers in a control room, overseeing the flow and temperature of every tank and valve. That’s why a strike that began in nine of the nation’s refineries yesterday isn’t likely to have much effect on fuel production at the plants. It will probably hurt refiners even less than the last strike 35 years ago, which also had a negligible impact on operations, according to industry analysts and consultants. “Refineries are highly automated operations that should be able to run with minimal disruption in the initial days and weeks,” Roger Read, an analyst for Wells Fargo Securities, said today in a note to investors. “Strikes are not new to the industry and a combination of non-union management and contract workers will […]