BP to slash thousands more jobs
UK oil and gas company BP has announced plans to cut back 5% of its global workforce in the face of a continued slump in oil prices. BP said it aims to reduce its global oil production, or upstream, headcount by 4,000 to 20,000 as it undergoes a $3.5 billion restructuring programme.
The company said its headcount totalled around 80,000 at the end of 2015.
With crude oil prices at 12-year lows of around $32 a barrel, the world’s biggest oil and gas producers are set to continue aggressively slashing spending this year as they face their longest period of investment cuts in decades.
“We want to simplify (our) structure and reduce costs without compromising safety. Globally, we expect the headcount in upstream to be below 20,000 by the end of the year,” a company spokesman said.
In the North Sea, he said BP planned to reduce headcount by 600 people over the next two years with most cuts likely in 2016. BP shares have fallen by around 40% since the oil price began to slide in the midde of 2014.
Oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron have already cut tens of thousands jobs globally to deal with a near 75% drop in oil prices since June 2014 that has seen earnings collapse.
BP, which must also pay $20 billion in fines to resolve the deadly 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill, announced in October plans for a third round of spending cuts and said it would limit capital spending, or capex, to $17-19 billion a year up to 2017.
The company, which has already sold over $50 billion of assets in recent years in order to cover the spill costs, said it expected an additional $3-5 billion of divestments in 2016.
British Petroleum, headquartered in London, is one of the world’s seven “supermajor” oil and gas companies. The company employs more than 84,500 people globally.
