We've all seen the news of X, Y, and Z companies laying people in these "tough economic times," but, I had not seen any petroleum operating companies announcing layoffs; until now.
Conoco Phillips has announced 1300 layoffs.
NY Times Conoco Layoffs Brief outlines Conoco's 1300 layoffs (does not say in which sectors, upstream, downstream, projects, corporate, etc.) and puts a number on their global capital spending (12.5 billion, i.e. not that much money). Considering how CoP Ferndale has been considering a new coker for years, recent estimates of which put it at 800 million to 1.2 billion, 12.5 billion TOTAL capex budget is peanuts.
Heresay indicates that layoffs may be in BP's future as well, particularily in the projects sector.
While at first, this might seem bad for people working for an engineering contractor, but they were phrased in such a way as project work gets removed from BP staff, it gets moved to contractor staff, i.e. the contractor shuffle. So, initially, engineering contractors might actually see an UPSWING in work. I wouldn't ocmplain.
-JE
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