A story we have been covering at ENB since the start of April has finally come to an end this week (or so it seems), as INPEX and the unions reach an agreement on pay and conditions at the Ichthys facilities in Darwin.

While unrest had been bubbling along for a while, the first real escalation in tensions was reported on 9 April when the Offshore Alliance – a partnership between the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the Australian Workers Union (AWU) – applied to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) for permission to ballot their members on the option of going on strike.

Since then, in recognition of the importance of INPEX and Ichthys in the country's energy landscape, the story has been a regular fixture on our pages as the unions, INPEX and the Australian Resources & Energy Employer Association (AREEA) have all jostled for attention, column inches and prominence.

But now - as of 6pm on Wednesday – the strikes are over and things should have pretty much returned to some semblance of normality at Ichthys. And the poor, beleaguered media manager at INPEX can presumably finally come up for air.

But what have those intervening weeks of wrangling and of course the ultimate enterprise bargain agreement (EBA) actually achieved?

Well, apart from what the unions consider better pay and working conditions for their members, and - from INPEX's point of view – a return to full, profitable  production and export operations, the undeniable winner are the unions.

Incidentally, the use of the word winner was frowned upon by one industrial relations expert I spoke to this week who said that it's too much of a "binary concept" which fails to accurately reflect "the array of interests impacted by events like this."

However, if there is a winner it's the unions.

This INPEX EBA process was the first renegotiated deal in the sector and as other agreements approach a similar renewal date, the unions will know they now have history on their side.

They will know they were able to hold out against a powerful multi-national company and get an improved deal for their members. And they will approach new negotiations with that achievement worn as a badge of honour.

As Clayton Utz' Saul Harben wrote in his excellent opinion piece in ENB on Thursday, "it was a union campaign that worked, and what works tends to be tried again."

 This will make for interesting engagements the unions and other influential employers in the sector. We'll be watching closely.