Maersk Oil plans to reduce its workforce in Denmark by approximately 160 positions as part of a plan to simplify the organization, the company has said.
The upcoming layoffs were announced following an internal review of Maersk Oil headquarters carried out in late 2016. Maersk Oil said it will also consolidate all employees of its Danish Business Unit (DBU) at the company’s Esbjerg office headquarters.
“For Maersk Oil [Danish Business Unit] the new organization will provide the foundation for a more cost-efficient operating model, and will position Maersk Oil DBU to safely and efficiently maximize production and ensure future investments that will help realize the full potential of the Danish North Sea,” Maersk Oil said.
The reorganization is expected to be carried out over the course of the next few months. The company said the first phase to reconfigure the onshore organization will be completed during Q1 2017.
“Our employees have done a great job in getting us to where we are today, and we recognise that this announcement will be unsettling news for them,” Martin Rune Pedersen, Chief Operating Officer. “It is however a necessary step in order to remain competitive in the Danish North Sea and the wider Maersk Oil business.”
The reorganization comes amid a prolonged slump in oil prices, which has rippled through just about every sector of the oil and gas industry.
Patrick Gilly, Managing Director of Maersk Oil DBU said: “What we are announcing today will ensure our long term future in a sustainable manner and it is a step in our efforts to support the Maersk Oil North Sea ambitions. The simpler organisation enables us to operate in a leaner and more integrated way with a maintained focus on creating maximum value from safe operations of the mature fields in the Danish North Sea.”
Maersk Oil is a Danish oil and gas company owned by the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group. Maersk Oil produces approximately 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day at operated fields in Denmark, the UK, Qatar, Kazakhstan, the US Gulf of Mexico and Algeria. It also has exploration and development activities in Angola, Norway, Kenya, Ethiopia, Greenland, Brazil, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
In September, A. P. Moller-Maersk Group announced it would be splitting into two separate divisions in order to focus on its core transportation and logistics services. All its oil-related business will be spun off into a separate Energy division.
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