New Round of Job Cuts at Odfjell Drilling

Another round of job cuts has reportedly been announced to Odfjell Drilling’s workforce.

Stavanger’s Aftenblad reported that around 200 employees would be given a pink slip over a contract loss for five Statoil’s installations offshore Norway. Further details about locations impacted by this decision are still unknown, but the Norwegian news website informed that the Norwegian section will be the one most impacted.

Furthermore, the website reported, the company will close down part of its engineering business in Norway.

To remind, Statoil recently awarded drilling service contracts for fixed installations to three contractors where Odfjell Drilling was awarded contracts for only two installations, Grane and Heidrun.

Before that, Odfjell Drilling was providing drilling services on seven of Statoil’s offshore production installations on the Norwegian continental shelf.

In an e-mail the company’s spokesperson confirmed the reports that 200 jobs would be lost: “Due to loss of contracts and the negative development in our markets and that we don’t see signs of immediate market change to the positive, we will start a process of downsizing approximately 200 employees globally.”

The spokesperson further added: “The process has just started and we are working closely together with the unions on this. We also experience reduced activity within engineering services and our employees are informed that we will shut down Engineering services from our Office in Stavanger.”

In its annual report for 2015 issued earlier in April, Odfjell Drilling said that during 2015 and further into 2016, the company reduced its manning in Norway through redundancies in administrative departments, Drilling & Technology, MODU and Well Services.

Redundancy packages were offered to onshore employees in Norway, and further downsizing of the onshore organisation was made throughout 2015 and into 2016 to reduce future cost level. Reorganisation of onshore support services was also initiated to increase efficiency and operational performance, the drilling contractor stated.

In the annual report, Odfjell Drilling said the company expects the drilling market to remain weak over the next couple of years. The company explained that this was due to continued delivery of newbuilds and oil companies’ increased cost focus and capital discipline, resulting in the continued imbalance of supply and demand.

Source: www.offshoreenergytoday.com