California, Mar 21 (AP) More than 500 workers at a Chevron Corp. refinery in the San Francisco Bay area went on strike early on Monday in a contract dispute.

The United Steelworkers union said in an email that the strike affecting the refinery in the city of Richmond came after workers voted down Chevron's most recent contract offer and that Chevron refused to return to the bargaining table.

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Chevron said in a statement on Sunday that it had negotiated with the union for months and believed a contract offered by the company was fair and addressed union concerns.

The company said that refinery operations will continue despite the strike and that it does not anticipate any supply chain issues.

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If the strike were to shut down the refinery, that could negatively affect gasoline prices in California — which has the highest regular gas price in the nation at USD5.86 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.

The union said it had negotiated a national agreement for oil workers on wages and working conditions, but about 200 individual bargaining units still had to negotiate local issues.

Chevron said that in Richmond, “the union's demands exceeded what the company believes to be reasonable and moved beyond what was agreed to as part of the national pattern bargaining agreement”.

The old contract with Chevron in Richmond expired February 1, and workers had been reporting to their jobs on a rolling 24-hour extension, the union said.

The San Ramon, California-based Chevron said on its website that the refinery produces gasoline, diesel and jet fuel and lubricating oils. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)