The world’s largest oilfield services company Schlumberger has lost more than $1bn and cut a further 10,000 jobs, reports The Guardian.
Like others in the industry, Schlumberger has been hard hit by the fall in energy prices and the downturn in the sector. It warned on Thursday that it does not expect a turnaround in the near future.
Schlumberger said it streamlined costs and cut 10,000 jobs during the last three months of 2015 to prepare for weaker business in early 2016. The company, which has principal offices in Paris, Houston, London and The Hague, had announced at least 20,000 job cuts earlier in 2015. It currently employs about 105,000 people.
Amid an oil glut, crude prices are down about 38%, with natural gas prices down about 27% from a year ago. The downturn has led energy companies to cut thousands of jobs over the past year. Earlier on Thursday, Southwestern Energy, the third-largest natural gas producer in the US, said it would cut 1,100 jobs, about 44% of its workforce.
The Schlumberger chairman and CEO, Paal Kibsgaard, noted that the number of rigs exploring on land for oil and gas in the US fell to fewer than 700 at the end of 2015, down 68% from the 2014 peak.
“The decrease in land activity was the sharpest seen since 1986,” he said, adding that “massive over-capacity in the land services market offers no signs of pricing recovery in the short to medium term.”
Schlumberger’s fourth-quarter results were hurt by a 39% drop in revenue and huge accounting charges, producing a loss of $1.02bn.
