BP prepares to shed several thousand jobs

BP is preparing to shed several thousand jobs under a cost-cutting programme that will lead to $1 billion (€800m) in restructuring charges over the coming year as it responds to tumbling oil prices.

The oil major is also planning to cut capital expenditure further as part of its strategy for next year having already announced a cut of $1 billion – $2 billion across the group next year.

BP said as part of its wider cost-cutting programme it expected to incur non-operating restructuring charges of $1 billion in total over the next five quarters, including the current quarter.

"We have already been working very hard over these past 18 months or so to right-size our organisation as a result of completing more than $43 billion of divestments. We are clearly a more focused business now and, without diverting our attention from safety and reliability, our goal is to make BP even stronger and more competitive," said Bob Dudley, chief executive.

“The simplification work we have already done is serving us well as we face the tougher external environment.”

BP is accelerating plans to reduce its workforce. It is looking at its non-operations staff, including back-office employees, who have been kept on as the company has shed production assets in its portfolio.

The company has 84,000 employees worldwide and up to several thousand jobs are expected to disappear as the group carries through 60 programmes to “simplify” the business. “This is a bottoms-up approach,” said a BP spokesman. “It is an accumulation of a series of different processes.”

Some 15,000 of its staff are employed in the UK at Sunbury-on-Thames, Aberdeen and head office in London.

Many work in Houston in the US, and several thousand in Azerbaijan, where it is a big producer in a venture with Azeri state energy firm Socar. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014