Schlumberger Ltd., the world’s largest oilfield services provider, will eliminate an additional 11,000 positions in a sign the industry will undergo another round of job cuts as a result of tumbling crude prices.
The latest announced reductions bring the company’s total to 20,000, making its workforce about 15 percent smaller than it was during the third quarter of 2014.
Schlumberger had announced plans in January to eliminate 9,000 positions, in what was then the single largest cut in the industry.
Schlumberger Ltd. must satisfy a list of conditions, in part linked to sanctions, to gain approval for its $1.7 billion bid to buy Russia’s largest oil driller.
Russia’s commission on foreign investment will meet the U.S. oil-services company to go through the conditions in the next 10 days, Igor Artyemev, head of Russia’s anti-monopoly service, said Thursday in Moscow.
Schlumberger’s planned acquisition of Eurasia Drilling Co. comes as the US and Russia face off over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for a separatist insurgency in Ukraine.
Eurasia Drilling has delayed a deal to sell a stake in the company to Schlumberger.
The company said it was waiting for approval from a Russian regulator before proceeding.
Both Eurasia and Schlumberger are continuing to cooperate with the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) to respond to requests for information regarding the deal.
Schlumberger has reached an agreement to acquire a minority interest in Eurasia Drilling Company (EDC) worth an estimated $1.7billion.
The company said the deal extends the long-term relationship they have shared since signing a strategic alliance in 2011.
In connection with the agreement, the principal shareholder of EDC will take the company private.
Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB), the world’s biggest oilfield-services company, took a $1.77 billion charge in the fourth quarter as it prepares for an “uncertain environment” after the collapse in oil prices.
Net income dropped to $302 million, or 23 cents a share, from $1.66 billion, or $1.26, a year earlier, Houston- and Paris-based Schlumberger said in a statement.
The company will cut about 9,000 jobs, 7.1% of its workforce, as it anticipates lower spending by customers in 2015.
Schlumberger has been awarded a drilling contract on the Mariner field by Statoil and its co-venturers.
The work will be delivered from the company’s Aberdeen base and it will be responsible for al number of services.
A total of 22 drilling and well services are included in the scope, including a logistics support responsibility.
