Posted by
Gray Ghost on Friday, January 09, 2009 9:14:35 AM
The Wall Street Journal (1/9, Casselman) reports, "Oilfield services giant Schlumberger Ltd. has begun laying off hundreds of workers in the US and around the world in the first of what experts say will likely be a wave of job cuts in the energy industry." Schlumberger, which is "the world's largest oilfield services firm by market capitalization" stated on "Thursday that it plans to lay off about 1,000 workers in North America, about five percent of its workforce there. The company also is cutting some of its 65,000 overseas workers but said it does not yet have exact figures." Schlumberger "said the cuts...are in response to a global slowdown in oil and gas drilling due to slumping energy prices and falling demand for oil due to the weak economy." Notably, "Halliburton Corp., Schlumberger's largest rival, said Thursday that it also will be cutting jobs."
Bloomberg News (1/9, Polson, Lonkevich) reports, "Schlumberger, Halliburton and other oilfield services companies began slowing their hiring practices in September, Michael Henzi, an analyst at Stern, Agee & Leach, said," adding, "I don't envision a whole lot of vicious cuts." He said that "oil prices will come back up 'pretty quickly' after production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. ... When oil prices rise, 'they don't want be caught without enough people.'"
The AP (1/9, Porretto) notes, "Job cuts that have afflicted almost every sector of the economy reached into the oil industry Thursday, as the biggest oilfield service providers said they were cutting employees." The AP continues, "Oil and gas companies have since scrapped many exploration and production projects, reducing work for companies like Halliburton and Schlumberger."
According to the Houston Chronicle (1/9, Clanton), "in a report [Thursday] morning, Pritchard Capital Partners, citing internal sources at the company, said Schlumberger was planning to cut 10 percent of its global workforce. With 84,000 employees worldwide, that would mean 8,400 employees would be laid off. But Harris said company-wide job cuts would be 'dramatically less' than 10 percent."