We all know that this year has been one of steadfastness as a worker in the oil and gas industry (exception being in the case of the executives of course). Job cuts to minimise cost has been the anthem on the lips of many following the slash in the oil prices coming into this year, with another eye keen on the creation of more efficient methods. As technology transition and innovation is never an immediate solution the industry has been pulled into what can be described as a massive scale downsizing of employees in other to stay afloat. Contracts are being scrutinized and re-scrutinized to ensure effective cost savings implementation strategies and only the best of hands are being "greased".
Just today, Schlumberger, the world’s largest provider of services to the oil and gas industry, announced new round of job cuts. On top of the 9000 layoffs announced in January, the company has said it will let go 11.000 more workers, citing cuts in capex made by oil companies due to falling oil prices.
Schlumberger Chairman and CEO Paal Kibsgaard said: “In spite of the detailed preparations we made in the fourth quarter, the abruptness of the fall in activity, particularly in North America, required us to take additional actions during the quarter. These included the difficult decision to make a further reduction in our workforce of 11,000 employees, leading to a total reduction of about 15% compared to the peak of the third quarter of 2014.
Another surprising angle to this is the fact that most oil CEOs pay have been immune to this current price slope. For example, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, paid CEO Ben Van Beurden a total of $32.2 million last year, almost three times the amount his predecessor Peter Voser earned in 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. At BP Plc, where shareholders will vote on compensation at the annual general meeting on Thursday, CEO Bob Dudley’s total pay rose 4.9 percent to $15.4 million.
Shell’s net income has dropped in nine of the past 12 quarters and BP’s has fallen in six. Oil’s 50 percent decline in the past year has forced industrywide cutbacks and thousands of job losses, including at Shell and BP. The global industry may lose 50,000 to 100,000 jobs in the next six months, oil-services company Weatherford International Plc said. In spite of this oil CEOs are hardly shaken. In the words of Tommy Campbell, a regional officer with the U.K.’s Unite trade union, which represents 8,000 North Sea workers “The workers are paying a heavy price for the greed of those at the top,” said “It’s morally reprehensible.”
Well one thing we can be sure of is that the shareholders will be calling for the slash of executive salaries come the end of this quarter and it might come to the stance of pay me or let me go (even though that is unlikely as no where is really greener than the other at the moment).
BE A CEO TODAY, OR AT LEAST BE IN THE EXECUTIVE ARM
No comments:
Post a Comment