BP cuts Houston staff as it scales back Gulf of Mexico operations
January 29, 2015
BP said Wednesday that it will lay off an undisclosed number of employees at is Houston office as it trims operations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
The cuts are expected to focus on support staff, BP said.
Some employees have already been notified that they have been laid off.
The company had about 7,200 employees in Houston as of June 2014.
The Houston cuts come on the heels of 300 job cuts at the company’s North Sea operations and 255 lay offs in Azerbaijan earlier this year.
BP is looking to streamline its Gulf of Mexico business amid weak oil prices and expects more lay off announcements in the coming weeks.
The company said its organizational changes should be finished by the end of the first quarter.
“The current price environment has caused operators to look at their cost structure and undertake efforts to drive efficiencies. We are working at a rapid pace, while being thoughtful about the best ways to make safe and sustainable change,” a BP spokesman told Fuel Fix.
BP said last year that it would book a $1 billion restructuring charge during the fourth quarter of 2014 and the early part of 2015.
Earlier this week, BP inked a deal to hand over operatroship and large equity stakes in three Gulf of Mexico fields to Chevron and ConocoPhillips.
The company is facing up to $13.7 billion in fines for violations of the Clean Water Act tied to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill that killed 11 people.